“I fail to see how a tourist trap is going to lead us to heaven,” Michael said.
But Lily had forced herself to look at the curves of the river below and she recognized them from her vision and the map.
“This is where we begin. I’ll need to summon again to see how we need to go on,” Lily explained.
Michael and Grim had traveled faster across the glass walk than she could manage. She worried about hurting its surface. She’d seen magazine articles about the cantilever structure a feat of engineering embraced by the Hualapai tribe as a means of improving their economy. Visitors were supposed to wear covers over their shoes to protect the glass. They were intruding on tribal land. The least they could do was leave it undamaged.
Unfortunately, her caution allowed waiting Rogues to spring their trap.
Lily was grabbed from behind by her backpack, which was torn from her back. She cried out and only then did Michael whirl from the view to find her in the clutches of Rogues.
Grim responded without pause, loyal to the last, but his response had been carefully planned for and expected. When he winked out of existence at the curve of the bridge to reappear at Lily’s side, a fireproof net was waiting. But more had gone into its construction than fireproof material. Each twisted joint ended in a spiked barb that pointed inward toward the beast it would contain. Each barb was black and tainted, poisoned by Rogue blood which was a reflection of their darkness. Daemons weren’t damned, but they could deal in damnation. The barbs were long and cruel. They penetrated Grim’s smoky fur instantly and he howled out in pain. Instinctively, he tried to gnaw at the barbs near his face, which only caused the poison to penetrate his mouth and tongue.
“Grim!” Michael shouted. He ran across the bridge, but the Rogues were ready for him, too. Lily struggled against the daemons that held her to no avail. Her sword, flute and kachinas were in the pack they’d taken. Michael still had the sword she’d given him. He reached for it in a fluid motion, faster and smoother than her eyes could track. But daemons were faster than half daemons. Michael’s father had been an Ancient One. So he’d been bequeathed more power than the Rogues might have known, but they seemed eerily prepared for his strength and speed.
This time they had a net designed for him. Lily screamed when the barbs bit into Michael’s flesh. She watched him fall. His Brimstone blood dripped down to sizzle and pockmark the glass.
Though fury shook her whole body, Lily stood helpless as a Rogue approached from the opposite side of the bridge. He wanted a grand entrance. He’d chosen the long way around. Behind him, a limping man followed. His entire manner was one of obedience to a master, but the deference his posture and movements showed didn’t match the fury in his eyes. Lily recognized the robes he wore. The limping man was one of the corrupt monks who had stolen her father’s name—the Order of Samuel. The Rogue daemon walked slowly, turning his face toward the approaching storm. As Michael and Grim bled, he sauntered. His companion was pained by his limp. Lily could see the leg he favored bled profusely through the rough bandages that covered a terrible injury.
“Devil take you,” Lily said.
Her words were carried to the Rogue and his toady on the whipping wind and he laughed in response. The monk wasn’t as amused. His face flamed and he fisted his hands. The Rogue stopped his sightseeing then to approach at a more regular pace, but he paused over the prone bodies of the hellhound and the half-daemon prince. He looked down at Grim. He nudged a groaning Michael with one toe. Then he lifted his attention to meet Lily’s horrified gaze. Unlike his master, the monk avoided Grim’s prone form, skirting him even though it meant more steps on his injured leg.
“Samuel’s daughter, I presume. I’m Abaddon. We haven’t met, but you should know...” The daemon moved closer to her, stepping over his bleeding victims. Grim didn’t move. He didn’t shift a hair. “I am the Devil.”
Chapter 15
Lily was held on either side by two powerful daemons. Their heat raised blisters on her skin. She hissed at the pain, but, after, she bit her lower lip against showing them her reaction to their touch. Her affinity was wild in her chest. Like a murder of crows flapping for freedom against the cage of her ribs. She held it back. She tamped it down. She wanted these fiends to get no pleasure from manhandling her. They laughed and it was an even wilder sound than the wind whistling over and around the glass skywalk. The storm was coming closer. Part of her responded to the vibration of the glass. Her affinity was drawn out to the surface of her skin by the reverberation of sound. She tried to resist. Without her flute, without her kachinas to channel her abilities, rising affinity would only send the Rogues around her into a frenzy.
She particularly feared the ones who held her. Their heat, their excitement, was rising. They might tear her apart if either decided he wanted to keep her to himself.
“You came for these, I presume,” Abaddon said, jeeringly.
A handful of Rogues carried a large object draped in a wind-tossed sheet between them. Glimpses of blackened bronze showed again and again as the wind blew. They stood near Lily and turned their burden until it was as it would have been on Lucifer’s back. She remembered the wings worn on Ezekiel’s back years ago when she’d first been delivered into his charge. He’d been very different from her beloved warrior angel, all craggy and battle-hardened. But she’d still been fascinated by the blackened wings.
Michael stirred and moaned. Lily jerked toward him, but her captors only laughed and held tighter. Then they laughed harder as she cried out with the sizzling of her skin. Her resistance was leaving her vulnerable. Without the rise of affinity to protect her, she would burn horribly from their heated hands.
Abaddon lifted one leg and placed his foot on Michael’s back. He shifted his weight and the half-daemon prince cried out against the pain of the barbs being driven into his skin. More Brimstone blood flowed and hot tracks of fury trailed down her face in solidarity. She was glad of the wind. It whipped her hair to hide the depth of her emotion and it dried her skin.
Grim still hadn’t stirred.
The angry monk had shrunk to the side behind the Rogues holding Lucifer’s wings. He watched and waited. Lily suddenly knew he was more of a threat than he appeared. It wasn’t only the anger in his eyes. It was his predatory air. Her affinity could sense the hunger in him. His blood was tainted by Brimstone and even though that taint wasn’t as strong as daemon blood she could feel his burn and the darkness in it. He would wait patiently for his chance to claim Samuel’s daughter. She felt more hunted than she’d ever felt before.
“You will help us as you’ve been helping Ezekiel and his bastard heir. We need your ability to track our enemies. Plus we just like it. A lot,” Abaddon said. The hold on her arms tightened, but neither of the Rogues protested. They would yield her to Abaddon when asked. He was their superior.
They would, but would the angry monk? She thought not. He acted as if Abaddon was his master, but he answered to nothing except his own fury. Its burn almost dwarfed the taint of Brimstone in his blood.
“I’m not a tool, especially not for you,” Lily said. She ached for her flute, for her kachinas. She was the one who needed a tool to channel the affinity. She needed to control it in order to call the spirits and ask them for aid.
One of the Rogues that held Lucifer’s wings cried out. The sheet had shifted and allowed his skin to touch the bronze.
The monk straightened and stiffened as if he prepared to lunge. She’d been right. He was only waiting to act on his own behalf. And Abaddon was too consumed by his power and importance to realize he had a traitor in his midst.
“Be careful. The council will decide who will wear the wings. Until then no one is to touch them,” Abaddon said. He lifted his foot from Michael’s back and stepped toward the wings. “Not even me,” he continued. Lily could see the lust for power suffusing his face. His eyes
glowed with Brimstone’s fire.
The Rogue apologized for his slip, begging profusely for forgiveness. Abaddon was distracted by his efforts to dominate his subordinates.
Lily couldn’t see where her backpack had been taken. It had disappeared in the threatening group of Rogues at her back. The wind of the approaching storm had grown impossibly fierce and damp. It buffeted them now with stinging whips of thick atmosphere. The clouds had come so close that the views had been obscured. Wind. Rain. And so much fire. Every Rogue around her burned with the heat of a thousand suns. Before the clouds enveloped them she’d seen the layers upon layers of earth that ringed the canyon.
All of the elements she could call waited for her to tap into the power of her affinity to bring them to life. She just needed some way to channel it without her kachinas.
Lily sagged in the daemons’ hold. Her burned skin sloughed off in their hands. The pain was excruciating. Her knees crumpled and she slumped to the ground. She landed, hard, because she’d taken her captors by surprise. The monk wasn’t as surprised. He’d read her better than the daemons had, just as she’d read him. He leaped, but he hadn’t judged her well enough. He thought she would go for her friends or for her pack. He landed several yards away from her actual destination. Before the monk could adjust or the Rogues could grab her again, she crawled the several inches necessary to bring her to one blackened tip of Lucifer’s wings. The sheet had blown back to reveal its bronzed point. Lily fought against the pain to lift her hand and wrap her fingers around the longest feather.
And then she let her affinity go.
There were no dolls. No flute. No Michael. No Grim. There was only her and a bold decision to risk using Lucifer’s wings as a channel for her power. And there was also the humming of the glass in the wind.
Daemons screamed. She’d heard those screams before. Fire had come to her. Blood burst into flames all around her. But Wind came, too. Humming the bridge and protecting Michael and Grim with the rain that followed when the natural storm clouds were swept over their motionless bodies. Lily saw steam begin to rise. It filled the air with fog.
She was ripped from her contact with the wings by Abaddon himself. He kicked her cruelly aside. But it was too late. Rogues burned. The two that had blistered her arms were already blackened corpses beside her on the ground. The angry monk had disappeared. He must have seen her heading for the wings and he’d wisely run away while she’d focused on his evil companions.
Michael was weakened from the tainted barbs. His Brimstone had been completely denied and tamped down even before he’d lost consciousness. He was protected when she called Fire. The rain cooled what remained of his Brimstone heat and soothed his skin.
Poor Grim hadn’t moved since he’d first been snared.
Abaddon hadn’t been controlling his Brimstone and he was fully a daemon, inflamed and burning bright. He howled at the churning sky as her fire engulfed him. But he didn’t fall. He didn’t join his fellows on the ground. Lily got shakily to her feet. The Rogue’s leader stumbled away from her across the slippery glass skywalk he’d originally sauntered over to torment her. He fled. Beside her, Lucifer’s wings were held upright by statues made of hardened ash that had once been daemons. Even in death, they hadn’t been bold enough to allow the wings to fall to the ground.
Lily stepped to them even as she watched Abaddon make it to the curve of the horseshoe bridge. He looked back at her. She reached to touch the surface of Lucifer’s wings again where the sheet fluttered open as if to grant her access. Clouds immediately rolled away. The storm dissipated as if it had never begun. Sunbeams stretched down from the sky as Abaddon climbed up and dived over the rail he’d melted in a mass of glass and steel from his heat. His clothes burst into flames echoing the sun. Then he fell out of sight.
He would never survive the fall. He might even dissolve into a cloud of ash before he made it to the ground. Lily pulled her hand from the wings. She backed away. Others would come. Others would always come. She fell to her knees beside Michael and Grim. Even drained, she found the energy to work on the nets. She found the openings and pulled them free. First Grim because he had been snared the longest. Then Michael.
“It’s over. You’re okay. You have to be okay,” Lily said. It would never be over. It would never be okay. Outside of the palace she was a Rogue magnet. Inside the palace, she was a snare. An obligation that could never be escaped.
Neither Grim nor Michael responded to her pleas.
Lily got to her feet to search for her bag. She was too weak to risk using the wings again. She stumbled, light-headed and dizzy, through piles of ash where Rogues had fallen until she found the scorched remnants of her bag. Rain had soaked it. Fire had held back. Wind had swept rain in to put out the flames. The kachinas had saved themselves. First she pulled on a damp shirt that was black around the edges. She bit her lip when the material met her burned skin, but anything was better than the wind that stung at this height even after the storm. She gathered up the bundles of burlap and the velvet pouch of her flute. It had been singed, but was otherwise the same.
This was all she could do. It would have to be enough.
She staggered back to Michael’s prone body and collapsed on her knees beside him. She barely had the energy to summon music from her flute, but she did her best. She allowed her affinity to rise with the music and hoped there was enough life left in Michael to respond. She played until her lungs protested before a slight aura began to glow. Warmth flooded through her. It stilled the shivers in her body and hands. It came from the man she wasn’t allowed to love on the ground. The flute fell from her fingers and she leaned to press her lips to his.
The kiss was soft and over too soon. Michael’s eyes fluttered open and she sat back.
“Grim is hurt and I don’t know how to save him,” Lily said.
Michael’s pale hazel eyes changed into twin flames of leaping Brimstone, but it was still a struggle for him to rise. He didn’t hesitate. He’d been near death, but he didn’t pause with the news that Grim was in danger. She had come to realize that Michael protected those he loved with everything he had. The hellhound had been his lifelong companion. There was no way that Michael would let him suffer and die without trying everything to save him. Lily reached to pull Grim’s head into her lap while Michael walked unsteadily toward the place where the dead Rogues held Lucifer’s wings.
“You win, Grandfather,” Michael said. Lily’s heart broke when he reached for the wings and ripped them from the ashy grip of the Rogue corpses. The hands holding them disintegrated. The macabre statue-like corpses crumbled and tumbled to the ground.
And her daemon prince donned his warrior angel wings for the first time.
* * *
He had worried that embracing his daemon half would mean he’d lost control. Instead he found ultimate control when his body accepted the weight of Lucifer’s wings. When the Rogue Council had bronzed the wings, they’d allowed the molten metal to pool into a broad-shouldered mantel where the wings had once blossomed from Lucifer’s mighty shoulders. The mantel rested on Michael’s shoulders now and his Brimstone heat allied with the residual power in the wings to fuse them to his body.
But it wasn’t only his heat. The protective instincts that always drove him and burned deep in his belly seemed to rise up and spread outward through the wings and beyond until an aura of energy glowed around him.
He was whole. Human and daemon. Brimstone and blood. Affinity and a fierce burn to protect. The throne was a dark threat on his future horizon, but, for now, the wings were a tool at his disposal to save his most loyal friend and companion. More than a tool. They were a part of him and they channeled everything he was and everything he could be with no part of himself rejected.
* * *
Lily’s affinity blossomed in a powerful wave of admiration and fear. He was more beautiful than he
r kachina doll had ever been. More perfect. More noble as he sacrificed for Grim. He strode back the way he’d come on steady legs. He was no longer weakened. The residual power in the wings had burned away the Rogue taint from the barbs that had pierced his skin.
He stood over them. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes because they were consumed fully by the Brimstone glow. She wasn’t afraid. His scars were old. His accident with his Brimstone blood had happened long, long ago. The burn didn’t control him. He controlled the burn. But she did cry out when he drew her father’s sword from its sheath and sliced it across his wrist with one graceful gesture. He knelt and allowed the blood to trickle over Grim’s worst injuries on his face and mouth. Smoke rose. The hellhound yelped. Lily ignored the burns on her arms and the new burns on her hands where Michael’s blood sizzled. But she did allow the affinity to rise. She allowed its aura to burgeon outward and upward until all three of them glowed with more than Brimstone light and smoke.
She looked up as tendrils of smoke curled up into the sky. Michael’s eyes had dimmed. The hazel was back. He met her gaze.
“You saved us,” he said.
Lily leaned into the uninjured hand he placed against her face. She tried to keep her eyes open. She wanted this moment to last. Then Grim stirred in her arms and struggled to rise. She let him go. Her affinity faded away. Nothing was left to hold her body in place. Her eyes closed. She fell away from Michael’s hand. He allowed it to trail along her cheek. He didn’t stop her fall. She slumped down to sprawl against the skyway’s floor. Flying. Falling. It didn’t matter which; with Michael her feet were never firmly on the ground.
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