Covenant

by Sabrina Benulis

  Silence descended again.

  “You saved Gloriana Cassel from being captured by the city’s police force,” Father Schrader finally said. “Why?”

  Israfel narrowed his eyes. “I do not see why that is your concern.”

  Father Schrader cleared his throat. A distant look came to his eyes, like he was thinking of someone specifically as he spoke. “She and her daughter were blood heads. But they will not be able to run forever from the higher authorities in the city. If you help us seal the portal to Hell, we will work to suspend the arrest on her and grant blood heads throughout the city amnesty unless they are caught explicitly in the act of witchcraft.”

  Israfel kept silent, staring at each human again with icy coolness. He wouldn’t show the emotion outwardly, but he couldn’t allow Tress to die. She was his responsibility now. It would be a blow to his pride as an angel, as someone who had watched his own adopted chicks suffer in the past and the present.

  Besides, as Israfel had said, closing one portal would not be the end of it all.

  “Will you help us, Prince?” Father Schrader said. There was real hope behind his eyes.

  Israfel knelt down so that he stared directly into the old priest’s face. “If I do, remember this. When the new era comes, and I am lord over everything that exists, I can bring you back. You and your fellow men. You will then have new bodies, but they will belong to me, and unlike me, you will not be immortal. You will instead die and be reborn over and over again according to my wishes, but never leaving me, always clinging to my memory and my service. That is what I will receive as true payment if you do not keep your word.”

  Father Schrader folded his hands together and bowed in reverence. “Of course,” he said. He trembled violently. “As you wish.”

  Israfel straightened. “Then I will follow you to this door.”

  His brief search was over. Israfel was about to enter his sister’s kingdom, but Heaven would also not be far away.

  He sang, manipulating the ether around him as he had learned to do so long ago. Israfel lifted his voice, changing the pitch and tone when required, allowing his own energy to throb throughout the small room. He sang the words he had awakened to that ancient day near the Nexus of souls, when he’d first opened his eyes to the starlight above him.

  The atoms of the gold bars began to hum, rearranging themselves.

  Israfel was the Creator Supernal. It was a trifle for him to open a cage. Before the priests’ eyes, the gold froze. Israfel touched the metal, it shattered with a dull crack, and chunks of gold dropped to the floor like glass shards. As the pieces reached the ground, they melted again to blazing golden droplets.

  Everyone flinched as the hot metal hissed against cold stone.

  Carefully, Israfel stepped over the shining mess on the ground. He brushed by the prayer wards stuck to the cage, and they curled up, burning to ashes. Israfel tried not to display the horrendous pain in his head as the priests led him along dark corridors lined with devotional images. Many of his escorts proceeded cautiously, keeping a careful distance from him.

  Eventually, their group stepped into an enormous room of dark stone. Green velvet curtains hung listlessly over the windows.

  “The portal materializes in the shape of a door and changes positions all throughout the city,” Father Schrader whispered. “It appears to respond to the desperate desires of souls.”

  “Because a demon has taken command of it,” Israfel said. He paused in front of a blank wall that he knew hid the door. The energy of its presence throbbed throughout the room and into his bones. “All your study and theology, yet you’ve become no wiser about how my sister Lucifel operates. She is only taking advantage of your unfortunate situation. How did you find the portal here?”

  The old priest sighed. “We used a deranged mental patient who claimed she could see it. She finally told us that she’d been seeing it for a while but hadn’t summoned the courage to enter. She disappeared last night—after a long search for her, we believe she finally entered the door, and it hasn’t moved since.”

  The human named Lizbeth drew in closer again, listening with her gaze riveted on Israfel.

  “Because the demon inside has what he wants,” Israfel said. “There is no further need to play games. What was the name of the girl?”

  “Stephanie Walsh.”

  That was the girl who’d thought she’d been the Archon, but most certainly wasn’t. Stephanie Walsh had been the adopted daughter of a demon. It seemed the particular demon toying with this portal knew exactly how to make the Archon miserable. Angela Mathers must certainly need Israfel’s help. But the odds were not good that he’d reach her in time.

  Israfel stepped forward and sang. The wall buckled, twisted, and then as if it had been hidden behind a veil, the door solidified in all its grotesque immensity. The priests gasped and ringed the room as reality warped before settling again, sending a dull pulse of energy through Israfel like a shockwave. He glided for the door gracefully and examined the carvings on its surface, tracing his finger over the black wood.

  He smiled to himself at the audacity of the iron snake as a doorknob.

  Apparently, this demon had a sense of humor.

  “This is a childishly simple lock to open,” Israfel said with a sigh.

  There was a sudden flurry of raised voices, the scuffling of shoes on stone.

  Israfel turned around.

  The priests stood behind him rows deep. More of them had entered the room and taken their positions along the walls, in the center of the chamber. They all stared at Israfel with stony faces. Every single one of them regarded him with cautious arrogance. Many held long knives. Father Schrader was in their midst, but as a captive. He struggled with a wild fear in his eyes, but a blow to the back of the head stopped him quickly. He sank to his knees, gasping, anguish on his face.

  “What is the meaning of this sudden idiocy?” Israfel muttered.

  Lizbeth broke from her companions and approached Israfel without hesitation. “Prince Israfel, you are a great angel,” she said softly. “You are one of the most powerful beings in existence. But unlike what Father Schrader so idealistically thinks, paying deference to beings superior to ourselves will no longer help humanity survive.” Lizbeth stopped a safe distance away from him. Her expression grew more intense. “In the course of my more occult studies at Westwood’s university, I recently became aware of something spectacular: the powers of angel blood. Angel blood can be used to heal wounds. When someone drinks it, it can reveal secrets of the past and future. And,” she said in a much harsher tone of voice, “it can be used to seal portals to and from the other Realms.”

  Israfel’s heart beat faster. Dizziness threatened him. But he remained stoic and majestic. “Come quickly to the point,” he said icily.

  Lizbeth took a deep breath. For a moment, she seemed cowed by Israfel’s imperious attitude, but she recovered. Her voice trembled anyway. “The Archon has abandoned Earth to its fate. Angela Mathers has left us to begin her reign over Hell. It is the end, and all we can do is try to prolong our lives as much as possible. But your words have also proven that God and his servants are not what we have been taught since our youth. We must now take matters into our own hands. With your blood, we will seal any more portals that arise.”

  Anger crackled inside of Israfel like a thunderhead. This kind of outrage was almost ludicrous.

  “You would dare . . .” Israfel could no longer speak. His body trembled.

  Lizbeth shivered but kept her voice firm. “Angela Mathers refused to protect the blood heads who shared her own suffering. That might have been her salvation. Instead, she chose a different path.” She looked at Israfel, and her irises swiftly shaded over to a familiar bright crimson. “Much like how you chose a different path, right, Israfel?”

  Israfel stiffened. His heart raced. Those were Lucifel’s eyes. But it was not Lucifel speaking.

  There was only one other possibility.

  Lu
cifel and Raziel had two offspring born of their forbidden union: Zion and Mikel. According to official angelic records, they had been executed. But more than anyone else, Israfel knew those records to be cleverly constructed lies. With Zion’s true origins thoroughly hushed, he currently ruled Heaven as Archangel in Israfel’s stead. Mikel, the female of the twins, had been born without a body as a pure spirit. But Israfel had made sure to imprison her in a body as soon as possible.

  Mikel was a disease almost as dangerous as her mother. Israfel had a strong suspicion she’d been responsible for much of the Archon’s suffering one year ago. If not directly, Mikel had at least set the wheels of fate in motion.

  Her ability to possess and manipulate had made her a liability since the morning of her birth.

  Now, she was in the body of this human girl. Somehow, she’d escaped her cage.

  Israfel stared through the human’s eyes and into Mikel’s, aware of the venom within him burning through his usually elegant expression. “So the real truth is that you have led them to this utter foolishness, Mikel?” Israfel whispered. “I suppose my pangs of guilt were misplaced. I was absolutely right in caging you like your mother.”

  The surrounding priests murmured among themselves, obviously confused by the new direction of the conversation.

  Lizbeth—or more correctly Mikel—strolled closer to Israfel completely unafraid. The angel behind the girl’s eyes never took her own off Israfel’s, just like when they’d entered the room. Now he recognized this confidence for what it was.

  “This is the result of your murders and your selfish cruelty, Israfel,” Mikel murmured in Lizbeth’s voice. “Blindness on your part. You thought you could imprison me and that would be the end of your troubles. You thought that torturing me would give peace to your own wounded soul. But you are wrong in every way imaginable. My torture will not give you peace. And besides, I found a way out of my prison that you never expected. On the night that Angela Mathers mistakenly summoned Lucifel’s shadow to Earth, she also summoned me. I entered the body of her friend Nina Willis, but that poor girl was murdered shortly after, forcing me to search again for another body to inhabit. This one suited me well enough, and so I observed Angela day-by-day without her ever knowing. And I also watched you. I watched as you suffered and grew hungry, weaker and weaker by the hour. Now, here you are as pathetic as I once was. Pangs of guilt, indeed. What did you think of being in a cage, Israfel? What will you think of the pain these humans will now inflict on you to keep themselves alive? Perhaps if you show me you’ve learned compassion again, I’ll let you enter the door unharmed.”

  “You say I’ve tortured you, yet it was I who kept your rebellious spirit in check for aeons.” Israfel laughed softly at the irony before him. Mikel dared to lecture him on the very faults she shared? He spoke again between gritted teeth. “Mikel, you think like the chick that you are. You know NOTHING of the pain I have been through in my many, many, many years of life. What can an infant like you possibly teach me?”

  Mikel’s anger burned through Lizbeth’s face. Her whispers grew raw and petulant. “Just as I said, you think only of yourself. How many times must you be told, Israfel? Your actions, not mine, have brought this universe single-handedly to the brink of destruction. And in that black moment, you didn’t think of anything or anyone. Not even my father, Raziel—”

  “And as I said, you know nothing,” Israfel reiterated. He tried to keep his voice as low as possible. He breathed hard, needles of pain running through his soul at the mention of Raziel’s name. “Yet fool that you are, you would stand against me? If I survive, I can make you more miserable than you would ever think possible. There is no doubt you deserve it for this insolence.” Israfel ached to smack her in the face. “You are your mother’s daughter, chick. Certainly you’ve worked in her favor, manipulating the Archon into Hell.”

  Mikel’s confidence faltered. Shock burned behind her eyes.

  Israfel straightened proudly.

  “There is much more to this moment than your twisted sense of justice. I know why you remain on this Earth. Who did you bribe to get Angela Mathers through the door? What other lives have you brought into your tragic mess?”

  Mikel swallowed back her anger. Human tears bunched near Lizbeth’s eyes as the angel’s spirit affected her heart. “What does it matter? I merely led people to what they wanted most. I never forced them to do anything.”

  Israfel studied her carefully. Surely Mikel was the one who’d somehow involved the demon controlling the door. But she was too smart to reveal anything further. She had at the very least told some vulnerable human how to contact the demon and enlist his help—likely for some kind of personal gain connected to Angela. Then, the demon had taken the opportunity for what it was.

  “Why?” Israfel said. “Tell me, chick.”

  Mikel’s voice cracked with pain. Her red eyes burned. “Because I want to die,” she finally said in an anguished tone.

  Israfel narrowed his eyes at her. “And only my sister can kill you.”

  Mikel and Lucifel shared certain special characteristics, and Mikel was an immortal spirit unable to be killed by ordinary means. It made sense.

  “The Archon will refuse to open the Book,” Mikel said. “But that action will set my mother free. Then, Lucifel will come to me, and the horror of my life will be over. The endless pain. The misery of living. I cannot bear being your instrument of torture any longer. I cannot bear this horrible nature I was born with . . .”

  Israfel looked at her and real pity tugged at his heart. So many times he’d been tempted to feel the same way. But he couldn’t help saying what he truly thought. “I will only say this one more time, you understand nothing and think like the chick that you are. You are not the only creature in the universe to suffer, Mikel. How dare you speak of selfishness when you have put countless lives in danger to end a life you see as pointless.”

  Mikel stared at him wide-eyed. She screamed and ran forward, striking Israfel across the face.

  She fell back and wept, clutching at the hand she’d dared to raise against him.

  Israfel gazed at her without any more emotion.

  “All this time,” she shouted at him, “and you’ve learned absolutely nothing new. Why should I save someone like you, Israfel? Now, you will reap what you’ve sown for so long.”

  The red light behind Lizbeth’s eyes flickered and was gone.

  Lizbeth stood in front of Israfel now, every trace of Mikel’s soul and consciousness gone from her face. She blinked at Israfel as if she’d just awakened from some long and odd dream. She lifted her hand and examined it, seeming to remember that it might have struck an angel.

  The surrounding priests had gone absolutely silent.

  But the tension in the room had changed. They had witnessed Lizbeth’s hand strike Israfel across the face.

  The magical blood they sought trickled down the side of Israfel’s cheek. He could be injured, maybe even killed. Israfel was a great angel, a legend, but he was still noticeably weak. They could follow through with their desperate act of sacrilege without any real repercussions. They might have casualties, but they could surely overpower Israfel with sheer numbers. Slowly, they closed in on him without saying a word.

  Israfel knew better than to waste his strength just yet. It would take many cuts to kill him.

  He looked at Father Schrader, who once again struggled with his captors.

  The old priest’s eyes were wide with horror.

  Israfel unfurled his wings, silver light blazing around his body. He huddled on the ground and wrapped his pinions protectively around himself, knowing he had to at least keep the treasure inside of him from harm.

  It didn’t take much longer for the other priests to overcome their remaining fears.

  With cries of triumph, they fell on him.

  Twenty-three

  I wanted to say with pride, that no matter how much time passed, or how much danger assaulted me, or how many temptati
ons I met on my way, that my soul never changed. —TROY

  The labyrinth’s great tunnel was even darker than before. The water of the Styx River trickled and coursed beneath boulders fallen from the cavern ceiling. Piles of jagged rock littered the ground in every direction, and every so often another chunk clunked powerfully to the earth.

  Troy lay silent and still, just breathing for a while.

  Eventually, she pushed up shakily onto her hands and feet, rolling rubble off her back. She unfurled her wings and tried to stretch them but found herself blocked by the piles of rock to her right and left. She leaned forward but jumped back hastily, hissing with pain. Troy had broken a finger on her left hand.

  Well, she had traveled for days on end hunting with worse injuries many times in the past. Her ankle that had been slowly healing over the course of days had at least gotten through the ordeal unharmed. Blood dripped into her eyes from a gash stinging her forehead.

  The smell of more blood and burning flesh met her nose.

  Troy flicked her ears, straining to catch any sounds of life in the darkness. A low moan and the sound of flapping wings could be heard beneath the trickle of the water.

  She began to pick her way under, over, and around the rocks toward the noise. Troy climbed over one of the adult Hounds’ corpses, her nails snagging in its mats of black feathers and hair. Her stomach growled with incredible hunger, and the smell of meat tormented her, but she never stopped until she’d left the corpse behind, turned a corner around a large rock, and found Nina Willis lying on her side, clutching at her leg and groaning softly.

  Nina didn’t even notice Troy approach. Her eyes were shut tightly, and her face was red from weeping. Fury perched by her side, one yellow eye cocked at the girl in concern. The Vapor looked at Troy.

  Fury’s thoughts touched Troy’s mind like gentle whispers. She is in great pain . . .

  Troy nudged Fury aside and sniffed at the steaming wound in Nina’s flesh. The injury was bad. Surely the girl would eventually lose the leg.