Covenant

by Sabrina Benulis

  “My name is Angela Mathers,” she said softly.

  “Oh?” The snake pretended an amused tone. “And to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit, Archon?”

  So they knew Angela’s true identity. She set her jaw, speaking between gritted teeth. “I’m going through the door. I was told that if I don’t go through the door, my friend Sophia will die. So here I am.”

  “A dreadful situation,” the snake hissed. “Regrettable.”

  “Let me in,” Angela said. “NOW.”

  The snake sighed. “You’re as much of a spitfire as I’ve heard. Unfortunately, I can’t just let you in. There are rules, you see.”

  Troy inched forward, searching the door again for signs of weakness.

  “What rules?” Angela prepared to take off her left arm glove and display the Grail. She was tired of this. There were too many obstacles already, and she couldn’t imagine any more in front of her.

  “Rules of fairness. This is my labyrinth, and I know it top to bottom. So I think it’s only polite to offer you a handicap, to make our interaction a bit more balanced. I have the advantage here, of course, and without a challenge, there’s little reason to play. So here’s my offer—if you are willing to sacrifice one of your companions, and believe me they won’t last long in this maze—I will take you directly to the Book of Raziel and I promise her unharmed. Otherwise . . .”

  “Otherwise what?” Angela hissed herself.

  “Otherwise, I’ve already won.”

  Sacrifice her friends? Sacrifice Nina? Sacrifice little Juno who’d escaped death in the Underworld and believed in Angela? Sacrifice Troy who had risked her life to make sure Angela stayed alive?

  Angela ripped off her arm glove and showed the Grail to the horrid snake.

  In a noise like thunder, Troy sheltered herself and Juno from the terrible sight with her wings. Nina cried out and crumpled to the ground, hiding her face. But the snake showed nothing but amusement behind its disturbing eyes.

  “Bastard,” Angela muttered. She bit into the Eye with her fingernails, summoning the Glaive.

  “Impressive,” the snake said coolly. “But that’s not quite an answer.”

  “Then here’s your answer,” Angela said. “No deal.”

  She thrust the Glaive’s blade through the snake. With a horrendous cracking noise, its iron body exploded into thousands of silvery shards.

  Fourteen

  One more moment. One more, and then it all began. —NINA WILLIS

  Angela leaned down, her hands on her knees as she took deep breaths of chilly air.

  She stared at the pieces of the door’s iron knob littering the ground. Not a single trace of the snake remained, but its icy voice echoed in her head. Betrayal, it had said. Certain betrayal. And a game over before it had barely begun. Her ears rang with the sound of the metal snake exploding into bits.

  A scream of frustration threatened to swell out of Angela. But it died in her lips, and she slumped even farther.

  God, Angela—what have you done? How the hell will you get through that door now?

  Troy’s derisive snort shot through Angela like a bullet of fire. “Splendid,” the Jinn said bitterly. “Perhaps we can pray our way inside.”

  “Shut up,” Angela shouted.

  Fury had been hopping across the ground, pecking with her large black beak at the little pieces of metal. Angela spun around to face Troy and the bird flapped out of the way, screeching in distress.

  Troy tensed her wiry muscles but seemed more surprised than angry.

  “What else was I supposed to do?” Angela said a little less heatedly. “Did you really think bargaining with a demon was going to get us anywhere? You heard what that snake said. How the hell was I supposed to agree to that kind of bullshit?”

  Troy snorted again, and her ears flipped back in annoyance. She dug her nails into the icy ground but stayed silent.

  Nina wobbled to her feet and walked over to Angela, helping her stay steady. “Just calm down, okay? Do you feel all right?”

  “Yeah.” Angela rubbed her eyes. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m sorry. It’s just—”

  Stupid. Stupid. What a stupid thing for her to do. Angela deserved for someone to yell at her. Sophia was right again. Angela was so stupidly impulsive sometimes.

  “Forget it,” Nina continued. “The last thing you need to do is explain. Even I wanted to smack that snake with something. Like you said, we’ll figure this out. There has to be more than one way through that door, magic or not.”

  Angela shook her head and sat down in front of the door, resting her head on her knees. She shut her eyes and wished the weakness in her aching body away, but it was obvious that time would be needed for her to gain her strength back. An hour passed as the cold ate through to her bones, and memories rose before her like teasing ghosts. She thought of Israfel and that long-ago night, realizing with a sick sensation she might never keep that promise either.

  Raziel had believed in Angela enough to show her the door, and she’d repaid him by ruining everything.

  Juno’s soft lisp floated out of the darkness. “Bad snake,” she said. “Angela was right.”

  “Quiet,” Troy snapped at her.

  Juno rustled her little wings. Gradually, she crept closer to Angela despite her aunt’s glares. Her small white hands tipped by sharp black nails poked at Angela’s legs. Troy growled and almost grabbed Juno by one of her ragged little wings, but Angela gestured for peace.

  “Stop it,” she said to Troy. “It’s okay. She’s not bothering me.”

  Troy looked doubtful. “As you wish,” she hissed, licking her bluish lips. She reclined on the ground and yawned, exposing some lethal teeth. Every so often, she glanced at Juno with undisguised irritation. “What do you want, chick?” she said at last. “What bothers you? There will be no food right now. Sacrifice as you did in the Warrens.”

  Juno cocked her head at Angela, one of her pointed ears flopping like a puppy’s. “I wanted to ask her. What is Angela singing?”

  “What?” Angela said, sitting up abruptly.

  She was singing?

  “It is a nice song,” Juno said, her owlish eyes bright.

  Troy shrugged her wings. “She speaks the truth. You’ve been murmuring like an imbecile for half an hour.”

  Nina hummed to herself as well, seeming to use it as an example for Angela. When she paused, she said softly, “It sounds beautiful. Where did you learn it?”

  Angela brought up another sigh from deep, deep down. “Israfel sang it. That was the song he used to bring me to this church that one night. But, honestly, it seems even more familiar. Like I heard the song somewhere else a long, long time ago.”

  It really did have the sound of a lullaby. That probably explained why whenever Angela remembered or heard the song, she floated in some indefinable place, rocked into bliss as a musical voice crooned the words over and over.

  “Sing it, please,” Juno said.

  Troy rocked up and snarled at the chick with a cascade of frightening anger. Her wings tensed, and her fingers clenched. “You will not listen to angel songs. You are the heir to the Throne of the Underworld. Angels are the carrion crows that left your ancestors to starve in Hell. They are the monsters that destroyed our ancient city and dispersed our people, driving us to the brink of extinction. You will not—”

  “I,” Juno said, straightening, “wish to hear the songs. They are part of our history, yes? As the Jinn Queen, I demand it.”

  Troy shook with wrath. She advanced on Juno with savagery in her beautiful face.

  Angela stepped in front of Juno, shaking like a leaf as Troy came closer. Fury danced and screamed in the background, and Angela wanted to scream with her.

  “Get out of the way,” Troy muttered evilly, her hypnotic eyes focused on Angela. “The discipline of our chicks is none of your concern, Archon.”

  With the greatest hunter of the Jinn staring Angela down, terror rose up in her. Sudden fear choked o
ut Angela’s voice. Yet she didn’t move.

  Troy flapped her wings with thunderous force. Shards of metal tumbled in the wind beneath her. “Spoiled little brat,” she snapped viciously at Juno. “When one of those angels rips off your wings, see then if I will come to your rescue.” She stomped painfully on her wounded ankle to a dark corner, curled her wings around herself, and, with one more cry of frustrated rage, shut out both Juno and the world behind a screen of tattered feathers.

  Angela allowed her heart to continue beating. She exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Nina that spoke volumes between them.

  Whoa, Nina mouthed. She stepped away from Angela and Juno, choosing to sit on a pew and gaze out into the shadows.

  I can’t believe I just did that . . .

  For a terrible moment, Angela had remembered her near-death experience with Troy over a year ago, and it had nearly left her a babbling idiot. Now she could get her sanity back and try to remember why she’d challenged death in the first place.

  “The song,” Juno said imperiously, tugging on Angela’s tights. The little Jinn blinked up at Angela, starkly serious.

  Angela knelt down in front of the Jinn chick. “If I sing it, do you promise not to mention it again? You shouldn’t make your aunt angry, Juno. Remember, she risked her life and is now an exile because she saved you from death.”

  Juno’s ears pressed down and she hunkered like a scolded dog. “I promise . . .”

  She appeared genuinely sorry and so much like a sad human child that it was almost impossible not to hug her. Then again, those little teeth had drawn blood from Troy’s hands. Keeping that in mind, Angela focused and sang. But words weren’t enough to knock down doors, and if anything, Sophia felt farther and farther away.

  Were you there in the Garden of Shadows?

  Were you near when the Father took wing?

  Did you sigh when the starlight outpoured us?

  When the silver bright water could sing?

  Have you drunk from a river of amber?

  Or eaten the nectar of dreams,

  Where thoughts linger determining aeons,

  And time stretches apart at the seams—

  A sudden cry broke apart Angela’s haunting memories. She opened her eyes again.

  Troy crouched in front of Juno, protecting her behind her large sickle-shaped wings. Her eyes had narrowed to slits, betraying pain.

  Brilliant light outlined the door, flooding the interior of the church.

  Juno’s eyes were even larger than before, though she shivered in pain from the light. Nina stepped beside Angela and gripped her arm, her face washed out by brilliance.

  The door to Hell had started to open.

  Angela lost her breath. The door groaned open farther against its will and her heart fluttered. The hellish carvings set in the wood resembled creatures made of starlight and pearl. Troy shrieked in horror, and Angela had to shut her eyes one more time against a luminous glory.

  And then it was all over. The light faded to a dull memory and the door remained open, revealing the same ominous stairwell that had claimed both Kim and Sophia in Angela’s vision.

  Troy shuddered but unfurled her wings from around Juno. The Jinn chick crept nearer to the door, but swiftly changed her mind and returned to the shadow of Troy’s great wings. Warm air wafted out of the door’s expansive mouth, toying with Angela’s curtain of hair.

  From a safe distance, Angela examined the stairs. They wound down into a darkness dimly lit by embers and strange glowing hieroglyphs.

  “What in the world just happened?” Nina said reverently.

  It wasn’t hard to put two and two together. “I think it was Israfel’s song,” Angela whispered. She didn’t like talking too loudly, as if it would attract some unseen horror from the stairway’s bottom. “It opened the door . . .”

  Is that why Raziel wanted her to remember Israfel? Or was it just a coincidence? If anyone had a power like this, it was the Supernal angels. Perhaps they really did know a song that opened doors to other dimensions.

  “But I can’t imagine how or why,” Angela added. She looked to Troy.

  The Jinn stared into the open doorway like a challenge had been thrown at her. Her blazing eyes narrowed. “There are no coincidences,” she said as if answering Angela’s thoughts. But her tone was oddly hushed.

  Now that the door had opened, no one seemed eager to enter it.

  A chill ran along Angela’s arms. So far, Stephanie and Nina had both said that if Angela entered and walked down those stairs, she would never return.

  But Sophia was there—in that dark, awful place where Lucifel reigned.

  Trembling, Angela adjusted her arm gloves and cinched the laces on her boots. She stood up straight and took a step forward, and then one back. Troy and Nina waited for her, no one seeming to be able to decide on what to do next after so many early displays of bravery.

  Finally, after the longest moment of her life, Angela walked toward the entrance to Hell.

  Behind her, she listened to the footsteps of her companions, each of them gaining strength the more she advanced, feeding somehow off her own courage.

  Even Troy was afraid this time. And what did it really mean if even she was afraid?

  Angela was about to find out.

  Without any more hesitation, she took the first steps down the stone stairway and into blackness.

  It was almost too easy at first. Step by step with Fury hopping behind them, Angela, Troy, Juno, and Nina descended down a path that eerily resembled the stairway Angela had summoned one faraway night to let souls escape the crumbling Netherworld.

  There might not be an escape for me this time.

  Despite a sinking feeling inside, Angela turned back to the door. Surely, it would be there like a promise that safety wasn’t far away.

  The Grail throbbed in her left hand as a quiet fear stole her courage.

  Of course, the door was gone.

  Fifteen

  I sensed the song’s true meaning had been lost over time, changed into something else. Just like our history. Just like my soul. Even so, I sang the words because they always brought me home. —ISRAFEL

  Help me . . . save me, please . . .

  Israfel chose to ignore the voice calling to him. He was in no condition to save anyone right now. Lying in the snow, weak and sleepy with cold, he had started to dream about a time before all this madness when he lived in angelic glory, without pain or fear. The dances, the endless nectar, the beauty of jewels and robes passed before the eye of his mind. Angels of every rank bowed to him, the ruling Archangel of Heaven, as he strode before them radiant with majesty. The familiar crown weighed again upon his head. Once more, his bare feet touched the crystalline floors of the angelic city.

  Someone please . . . help me . . .

  Suddenly, he was in darkness. He was a caged bird tormented, forced to eat and drink to stay alive even though he no longer wished to—because it had all been taken from him.

  The nightmare came alive again, and Raziel plummeted to his death amid a rain of blood and feathers.

  Quickly. Help me. BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

  Israfel opened his eyes, momentarily bewildered by the reappearance of the snow and the filthy alleyway where he had fallen. His fingers slid across the ice, but he pushed himself up anyway, gazing out at the endless flakes of white sprinkling Luz’s cobblestones in layer after layer of cold. He had saved Angela Mathers, the Archon that held his brother Raziel’s soul, from death and this was how the universe thanked him: by separating him from his injured guardians, by keeping him out of Heaven, and by leaving him stranded and weaker than a newborn chick. Israfel no longer had any sense of how much time had passed for him on Earth, only that it had been too long and that human food was horrifically inadequate for him.

  He clutched his stomach, feeling familiar movement inside and sudden queasiness.

  Even if he starved, the hope living inside of him could not.

  “Well, wo
uld you look at that,” a human voice said from the darkness of the alley. Two dark silhouettes strode toward Israfel casually, completely unafraid. “Such a pretty thing and all alone. Nowhere to celebrate Christmas tonight, honey?”

  Two men in tattered jackets stopped underneath a flickering gas lamp, carefully observing Israfel with frightful smiles.

  He instinctively tried to reveal his wings, but they never appeared.

  A frightful seizurelike shudder ran up his arms. He’d forgotten he was only slightly better than any other helpless mortal right now. Israfel caught his breath as one of the men stooped down and grabbed him by the collar of his coat, pulling him to his feet.

  “Shit, she’s gorgeous,” the taller of the two men said. “What do you do for a living, honey? Are you a model? You could come model for us tonight. Get out of this cold, away from all the damned rats. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Don’t worry, we’ll treat you fairly. A hot meal, a good drink, a warm bed . . .”

  His companion laughed. “You’re scaring her, Ronan.” He scrunched up his face, his nose red with cold. “Just knock her unconscious and take her before she puts up a fight.”

  Israfel backed up against the brick wall, steadying himself. “You shouldn’t touch me,” he said softly. “It might not turn out well for you.”

  “I’d beg to differ,” the taller man said, placing both hands on the wall on either side of Israfel’s face. “But if you come with us without making a sound, I’ll try my best not to bash your head in. What’s your name, anyway? Something about you seems familiar . . .”

  “I have many names,” Israfel said.

  That wasn’t a lie, of course. Humans apparently had so many names for him, he’d lost track of most of them.

  “So we’re dealing with a nut job, are we?” The man made a gruff noise under his breath. “Fine by me. Women like you aren’t usually missed.”

  Israfel laughed. “Who said I was a woman?”

  The man’s eyes went wide. He glanced to his companion who appeared equally thunderstruck. “You’re a man?”

  “I never said that either . . .”