Archon

by Benulis, Sabrina

  He smashed the crystal against an exposed rock, actually baring his teeth back at Troy, hardly ashamed at his slip. She’d understand the gesture better than words, and better than him explaining that the worst part of all this failure was leaving Angela behind.

  Troy began to gnaw through the barrier, ripping through it with wet, fleshy noises.

  Kim escaped in a dazzling burst of crimson. Mere seconds before she crawled through the hole for his soul.

  Omega

  And now we are at the End.

  Though some would call it a Beginning.

  —CARDINAL DEMIAN YATES, Translations of the Prophecy

  “There is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery.” The novice paused, waiting for the class to ingest the quote and contemplate it. She was slight, and looked too young to be teaching university freshmen. Unlike Kim, her mannerisms were all nerves and a complete lack of charisma that matched her mousy brown hair. “Today we’re going to discuss exactly what Dante was trying to say in that famous quote . . . now if you’d copy the phrase exactly as it appears in the Italian . . .”

  Angela shifted in her seat, glancing at Sophia out of the corner of her eye.

  She was obeying the student teacher, copying the Italian in her elegant handwriting, her pen swirling deftly across the paper. Sophia had started wearing an overcoat that matched Angela’s—black, brass buttons and an emerald eye stitched on the breast pocket—its sharp lines strangely suiting her neat sense of fashion. With Stephanie permanently absent, and most of the other members gone, Angela had inherited the position of head of the Pentacle Sorority, assuming her role mostly out of spite toward the priests who’d fawned over Stephanie so sickeningly.

  Now they would pander to her rules. Ones that would be a lot healthier for all of them.

  The novice meandered to the other side of the room, coming to rest under a whitewashed wall, its surface repainted after Stephanie’s insane spree of territorial marking. In the brief span of time Lucifel had possessed her, pentagrams had replaced every sign, religious statue, and crucifix in sight. This room’s crucifix was back in place, gleaming down from its spot above the door frame.

  “Miss Mathers.”

  Angela lifted her head from its resting place on her hand.

  The class quieted, waiting, silently afraid. Most of them remembered Stephanie’s accusations in the cathedral, that Angela had summoned a demon to Luz and murdered Maribel. Ironically, the part about the demon had turned out to be the truth, though almost everyone was disregarding it, nervous yet unable to ignore the fact that Stephanie was now clinically insane.

  According to Sophia, Stephanie lived in an institution on the south sea cliff of Luz. Often, she would rave about eyes, darkness, blood, and books.

  No one paid attention to a single word she said.

  “Yes,” Angela said, standing. Wind whipped through the poorly patched hole in the ceiling, spraying briny rain onto her hair. The sky peered down into the classroom, blacker than ever before. Most of Luz had been so damaged in the worst of the storm, people no longer cared to hide from more of them.

  “Miss Mathers, I’d like you to lead the class in discussion of the quote as it pertains to the chapter as a whole.”

  Angela tugged at her arm gloves and picked up her book.

  She spoke aloud the first question on the discussion page, but her mind was entirely elsewhere. Not that it could be helped.

  There was too much to ponder, to fear, to worry over.

  It had been three weeks since Nina had died, since Kim had left, and since every angel and demon in her life had disappeared after the short interval she’d known them. In that time, Luz had already changed, its ordinances and Academy life becoming stricter, more secretive, and if possible, even more cut off from the mainland, probably the Vatican’s chosen method to keep the sensational a rumor. But what had taken place was no hallucination or trick of the weather. Angela, too, had almost died, though from the power of the Grail rather than a battle between two angels. Using it to its maximum potential had somehow brought her to the brink of mortality, and when she’d awakened in that new bedroom of the Pentacle House, Sophia’s first comment to her had actually been a soft reprimand.

  And now you know the consequences.

  Angela was a mystery, a vessel that contained Raziel’s spirit dwelling side by side with her unidentifiable soul. But she was still human, and she could not conjure Lucifel’s infamous Glaive without suffering for it. Yet, though she’d eventually emerged unscathed, the deaths that the Supernal’s treasure had brought about were almost too many to count. Among them now were the people in Luz who’d drowned, been struck by lightning, or blown over the sea cliffs and off bridges.

  “Can anyone explain the symbolism found on page three hundred . . .”

  The Eye’s curse seemed determined to continue, as if it had exacted hundreds of lives as the price for its use.

  Free to consider the pain of those losses, Angela had taken her time to mourn Nina, and even Brendan, crying at every spare moment. But like all things, eventually her tears ran out, and she’d learned to deal with her unusual situation like she’d learned to deal with her previous one: always waiting for that next chance to escape from it.

  This was her first class in a long while.

  Angela spent most of her hours painting Israfel’s picture, sobbing when she couldn’t get his face right. The talent that had gotten her into the Academy was, like her dreams, a thing of the past.

  She needed the real Israfel.

  She’d find the real Israfel again.

  “. . . or make an outline of the stages Dante passes through before arriving in Heaven . . .”

  Though they both knew death wouldn’t come soon enough to satisfy her.

  Sophia sat in front of the window, absorbed in the swirl of water on glass.

  Two days of meager sunshine had at last given way to a chain of sour storm clouds, and Angela realized Sophia seemed to like nothing more than staring at the different downpours through every new window the Academy had to offer. Considering the extent of the damage, that was quite a lot. The Pentacle House, now renamed the Emerald House, had a set of bay and bow windows on every other floor, marking its status as a grand mansion. Most of these were now covered with plywood, turning the building into a match for its neighboring buildings, which most definitely weren’t. Stephanie’s influence must have been the culprit.

  She’d demanded privacy, but not crappy real estate.

  “I’m surprised,” Angela said, sitting on the velvet chair next to Sophia, the candles flickering, highlighting the darker red strands of her hair. She crossed her legs, still not used to the skin on her thighs rubbing together. During the past week, Angela had discarded her tights permanently, taking pride in being a freak for the first time. “Every time I turn around, you’re there, watching and waiting. I thought you’d be gone like the rest of them.”

  Sophia smiled, her expression amused and lovely. “Well, I am your property now. Why would they bother with a Book they can’t even read?”

  “You know what I’m saying. It could take a long time to find the Key. The Lock. Maybe I’ll never find it, and Raziel will have to try all over again. Maybe you’ll always be waiting.”

  Sophia shook her head, her curls swaying. “Not for as long as you might think.”

  Gentle thunder rolled above the dormitory, rumbling across the roof shingles.

  “Did you see the paper this morning?” She plucked the newspaper from her lap and handed it to Angela.

  Angela unfolded the front page, her fingers already shaking. The headline was all too familiar.

  FEAR IN LUZ: KILLER’S REIGN OF TERROR BEGINS ANEW

  Center City, Luz—With massive death tolls on every side of the island, Luz city officials as well as Academy authorities have been quick to put the deceased to rest, establishing their Memorial Cemetery in a park formerly at the epicenter of Academy life more than sixty ye
ars ago. Dedicated to the memory of Archbishop Gregory T. Solomon, often known for his annual celebration of the All Saints’ Day feast . . .

  Angela glanced at the picture: a priest with white hair and an authoritative face.

  The last she’d seen him, his head had been rolling across the floor of St. Mary’s, severed by Naamah’s overgrown nails.

  . . . it has been planned to be a haven for family and friends to mourn their loved ones and erect impressive headstones, their cost benefiting the Academy’s slow recovery of buildings, academic materials, and communication lines to the mainland. The disturbing presence of a murdered woman just three days ago, however, has put a halt to one of the most generous outpourings of sympathy in recent years. The killer’s habits are familiar, as is the method of dismemberment and the pattern of animalistic cuts on the right . . .

  Angela didn’t need to read anymore. She set the paper down, hollow inside.

  Sophia stared at her, her gray eyes saying everything without her mouth speaking a word. Then she gently took the headband from her hair, setting it on the end table to their right, fluffing out her river of curls. Her lips were set in that line she’d adopted almost constantly since Stephanie’s insanity, like any moment she might have to think of an excuse to defend her actions that night.

  Clack. Clack, clack.

  Sophia didn’t even jump as the crow tapped its beak against the window, begging to be let in. “Shall I?” she said to Angela, voice strangely sweet.

  Should she?

  If Angela said no, Troy would find another way in and be even angrier.

  But she ended up saying nothing, watching the bird pace anxiously outside the sill, its croaks rasping between whispers of thunder. Of course, she’d been naive, believing this moment would never arrive. Angela had tried to stay optimistic, hoping Troy would just go home and forget her humiliation in the Bell Tower. How could she have been that stupid? Now that all was finished, Israfel gone and Kim probably dead, Troy was starving for her next taste of revenge.

  The confrontation’s inevitable. She’ll find me, just like she found Kim. I’ll tell her not to kill me, hurt me, and just like when she shoved the Grail in my face, she’ll find someone or something else to do it for her.

  Best to end the problem right now.

  Angela stood, sliding off the glove covering her right hand.

  She readied to part her lips and say the words Sophia was waiting to hear.

  Too late.

  The crow flapped out into the gray rain, swallowed quickly by the water. Angela walked up to the window and touched the pane, letting winter leech into her fingertips. Luz was both too warm for snow, white or black, and too cold for anything but a bone-chilling, dreary soaking. She examined the porch roof, vaguely discerning a shape scamper across the shingles. It was the same size as Troy, but a little more wiry, its hair longer and wild.

  Thump.

  She shouted, stumbling away from the bay seats, grabbing for anything steady.

  “You saw him then,” Sophia said gently. “He’s bold, isn’t he? But he’s also intimidated by my presence. As long as we’re together . . .”

  What had she seen? A face like Troy’s, but with wider eyes and a mane of wild hair, those terrible Jinn features even more sharp and defined. His teeth were a little longer, and the brief glimpse of his wings had startled her more than his curiosity, their typical soot glossy with the sheen of blue and purple, like a blackbird’s feathers.

  That’s right. There’s an entrance to Hell now in Memorial Park.

  No—Memorial Cemetery.

  Angela shuddered, slipping Kim’s note out of her breast pocket. She’d recognized his handwriting from the brief class or two they’d spent together, his letters cruder than she’d expected from a centuries-old priest. She hated looking at the thing. Its words reminded her of too many evils, like her selfishness, her iron grip on Sophia, her childish sense of clamping on to the universe—and the unnerving idea that she’d throw everything away for Israfel’s touch. The irrational fear took hold of her once in a while, that she would make everything and everyone eventually suffer.

  And that was something only Kim understood. Too often, she found herself longing for his warm hands and his cool voice, missing him more than she’d expected.

  Whenever she squashed the temptation, it only returned worse than before.

  Today, it had been the Jinn’s turn to bring it back.

  “Let me see.” Sophia touched Angela’s trembling arm, slipping the note from her fingers.

  She perused it with a wry smile, and then returned it, sighing. “Don’t read into it too much. Demons have a way with words, but they don’t understand them at all.” Her whisper was like a lover’s kiss. “I’ll always be right by your side to explain.”

  Angela smiled, crumpling the note and pitching it into a trash bin. “You’re right. Let them come.”

  Sophia grabbed her bag, obviously eager to head out for dinner.

  “I’ll be ready,” Angela said, trying to convince herself. To erase the words. But they stayed in her head, and as she turned for a quick glimpse in the mirror, she saw something even more terrifying than any Jinn, blinking back at her, its eyes blue and its hair blood red, its lips gently whispering the new song.

  Blackbird escapes hungry

  The Fly of doom

  Her hellfire smoke eager

  To scorch, consume

  All but the One seeing

  Who will assume

  The mantle and title of Covenant,

  Ruin.

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to God. You made everything possible for me, whether by arranging one amazing coincidence after another, blessing me with this crazy talent to create crazy worlds, or throwing people into my life who couldn’t help but encourage that talent. Not to mention angels. Did I mention I really like Your angels?

  Thank you to my husband, Mike, and to my Mom and Dad, Gary and Sharon Naples. Your patience in listening to me babble about imaginary people, places, and things was more valuable than you can ever know. But what meant more was your belief in what I could accomplish. Through it all, what I wanted most was for you to be proud and happy, and I pray I can make you feel that way forever. You’ll have to bear with me as I keep trying and hopefully keep succeeding.

  Thank you to my family and my steadfast friends, each and every one of you. Of course I didn’t forget you! Please know that your excitement for me and your overall support helped me through some of the toughest times. I wanted to entertain you and whisk you away to a faraway place. Now you’ll have to fess up and tell me if the magic worked.

  Sincere thanks to my agent, Ann Behar, and my editor, Diana Gill. Your risk taking and vision shaped my novel into what it is today and I’m endlessly grateful for all of your hard work and dedication. Novels are never the work of just one person, and in this case that is most certainly true. If you hadn’t poured your time and effort into this project, where would I be now?

  A heartfelt thanks to my friends and fellow classmates at Seton Hill University’s Writing Popular Fiction program, especially my mentor, Timons Esaias. Poor souls, you had to read an amateur version of something that resembled this book. But somehow I managed to enchant you and make you believe in it, and that, I learned, is what real writing is all about.

  And last, but not least, thank you to my cockatiel, Caesar. Because of you I fell in love with all things with wings.

  That reminds me—thank you to the Birds, both those in Heaven and on Earth. It’s easy to reach for the stars when you have guides to show you the way.

  About the Author

  SABRINA BENULIS graduated with a master’s in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University. She currently resides in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, Mike, and her spoiled cockatiel, Caesar. Archon is her first novel.

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  Credits

  Cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

  Cover illustration © by Borja Fresco Costa

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ARCHON. Copyright © 2012 by Sabrina Benulis. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-06-206940-5

  EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062069450

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