“As the lieutenants and keepers of order among the celestial host, they move freely among the echelons. When they’re not leading the angels to war, they guard the gates to the First Heaven, where mortal souls ascend.”
Slowly she shook her head. “How many heavens do ye have then?”
“Seven Heavens altogether. Think of them as seven shires in the kingdom of God. We roam readily among them—most of the time.”
At last she stirred restlessly in his arms. He wanted to hold her forever, but he made himself release her. Sitting back on her heels, she wiped away the tear-tracks beneath her eyes.
Her face turned wary, small teeth nipping the lush curve of her lower lip.
“And ye’re...Lucifer’s son? I take it ye weren’t speaking metaphorically.”
He uttered a short, bleak laugh.
“How is that possible, Zamiel?”
It always comes back to Lucifer.
He sighed. “You know him as the Father of Lies, the Beast, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit. But once he was close to Jehovah, the best loved of all His angels. Sensing his discontent, Jehovah granted Lucifer a special favor, unprecedented among all the Choirs of angels—the ability to create life, a son and companion.
“Just as God created mortals in His image, so Lucifer crafted me in his.”
She was listening closely, emotions battling for dominance in her features—skepticism, fascination, revulsion when he spoke of Lucifer that sent his heart plummeting to his boots.
Father, you have been my curse throughout eternity. My only friend, save Gabriele, but a curse all the same. If you cost me this woman’s love, I will never forgive you.
But what was he thinking? She could never love Death, the Son of Lucifer. Even if, by some miracle, she grew to love him, it would lead to naught but heartbreak and tragedy, for both of them.
“Since my exile, Lucifer has been my sponsor on the mortal plane. You see this purse?” He jingled the heavy pouch at his belt, which clinked with the weight of coin. “It’s never gone empty, thanks to his largesse. Coin of the realm—sufficient to buy my title, my place at court, my elegant lodgings. Without his generosity, I’d be penniless. Of course, the old serpent has his motives.”
Seeing the cauldron of questions bubbling on her lips, he said gently, “We shouldn’t speak further of these things. No earthly creature should know too much about the celestial plane. Such knowledge has driven men mad.”
When he mentioned madness, she flinched. Her face closed like a door. For the first time, she seemed to become aware of herself, crouched on the floor in disarray. Hastily she scrambled to her feet and shook her skirts into order.
She feared being thought mad, he realized. No wonder, given her history and the way she was viewed at court. Perhaps she even feared she was mad. She’d just witnessed a cataclysmic revelation, sufficient to make any woman question her sanity.
Swiftly he unfolded to his feet. “Can we talk about what you saw in the mirror? She was you, of course—the queen of two kingdoms and a Faerie. The blood in your veins is Tudor, Stuart and Fae.”
Already she was shaking her head, one hand lifting to thrust the words away. “Angels are one thing. They’re spoken of in Scripture, aye? But there’s no such thing as Faeries.”
“Linnet, you know there is. Elizabeth Tudor herself is part Fae, through her mother Anne Boleyn. I know you’ve seen it.”
“Part of my madness,” she said, brittle.
“But you’re not—”
“Which I utterly refuse to indulge. I’ve already lost four years of my life to mad fancies and imaginings—two years mewed up for a madwoman, and two years before that spent wandering alone in the wilderness I still can’t bloody recall. Who can say what agent of darkness wove that image in the mirror?”
Her elegant throat rippled as she swallowed. “Nay, ye were right. This changes naught. I’ll believe none of it until I speak to my mother.”
Recognizing the stubborn set to her chin, he swallowed the arguments he wanted to voice. She said she wanted the truth, and he believed her, but she’d had to absorb a lot tonight. Clearly this was no moment to broach the delicate business of her Faerie blood.
Linnet Norwood might appear fragile, but she possessed a core of quiet strength. If she needed the journey to reconcile herself to the truth, he intended to protect her from the Protestants and William Cecil and the bloody Queen herself until she succeeded.
When he said naught to dissuade her, a subtle tension melted from her shoulders. Briskly she swept loose curls into her chignon and straightened her russet habit. Once more, she assumed the guise so precious to her—the sedate and pious young woman.
“So then,” she said, “where’s Morgause? I thought she’d be running in for a peek at the reavel-raivel with all this ruckus.”
A rueful smile tugged at his lips. “And you call that language English?”
“It’s Scottish English,” she said primly. But her own mouth twitched as she slipped past him toward the narrow slit in the canvas and the night beyond.
As she gripped the heavy canvas and flung it wide to expose the yawning darkness, a prickle of warning sizzled down his spine. Suddenly he smelled death in the night, the same death he’d smelled before the Frenchman attacked.
Without questioning the flare of divine instinct, he dove through the air and caught her just before she thrust her unprotected head into the night.
With a yelp of surprise, she went down, sprawling beneath his weight. Together, limbs tangled, they hit the hard floorboards.
“What the Devil—?” she gasped, thrashing beneath him.
A heartbeat later, an arrow hissed through the opening and thudded into the stacked crates.
Beneath him, Linnet froze.
Outside, a gruff voice demanded, “Did I get ’er?”
“You blathering idiot, you released too soon,” a second voice said crisply. “The game’s up, lads. Bring her out.”
“Hell’s Bells,” Zamiel muttered.
An instant later two more arrows sliced past overhead. Linnet cried out and plastered herself flat against the floorboards. The acrid scent of her terror flooded his senses.
Beneath the threat of violence, a cool-headed clarity snapped into place, bringing their surroundings into sharp relief. A fierce sense of purpose bubbled through his blood, a mad euphoria Zamiel recognized.
For most of the warrior Choirs, holy war pitched them into a violent frenzy. For him, a Dominion and the Angel of Death, the looming proximity of battle filled him with the same savage elation.
The killing rage.
But he couldn’t afford to lose himself in it—not when Linnet needed his protection. Beyond the canvas wall, dangerously insubstantial against the threat of flying arrows, his heightened senses detected the crunch of footfalls.
They were surrounding the wagon, damn it. Far too many of them.
All of them Linnet’s enemies—and they would die. He would take positive delight in seeing to it. The urge to laugh swelled like a bubble in his chest, but he forced it down.
“Easy,” he whispered against her hair, the innocent sweetness of her lilac fragrance filling his head. “Stay low, beneath the rim of the wagon. See if you can slither to the back and get a look behind the mirror. There should be another way out there, flush to the forest. And I need fighting room.”
Against his face, she nodded and twisted to see him. One sherry-gold eye came into view, wide with terror, but not mad with it.
“Be careful, Zamiel. Ye’re not immortal anymore, aye?”
“You’re worried for me.” Despite their desperate circumstances, an irrepressible grin broke out. “If anything happened, would you miss me?”
A blush flooded her pale cheek. “Don’t let anything happen, ye bampot!”
Zamiel was seized with the inappropriate urge to kiss her. Just once, and quickly—
“You there, in the wagon!” The commanding voice was back, alarmingly close. “We have you surrounded. In the
Queen’s name, surrender!”
Linnet went rigid beneath him. “Blessed Bride, they come from the Queen.”
“Hush.” Relinquishing with a sigh the tempting notion of kissing her, Zamiel rolled deftly away and unsheathed his rapier.
What I wouldn’t give for a bow.
His aim with an arrow was wicked. He was Death and a Dominion, and archery was a killing art. But no sense pining for what he didn’t have.
Linnet was crawling, squeezing past him between Morgause’s stacked possessions. Where was Morgause? he wondered suddenly. A cry of warning as the Queen’s men closed in would have been helpful.
“You in there!” The bellower was back, still closer, no doubt emboldened by the lack of a showy response on his part. “By the order of the Queen’s Secretary, Sir William Cecil, I command you to surrender.”
So her enemy was Cecil, though he doubted very much the fellow would trouble himself to come in person to attend this night’s business. Zamiel allowed himself a single heartbeat to relish the thought of killing the treacherous weasel. Then he positioned himself beside the entrance, behind a pile of crated books.
“Come and get me,” he called to their attackers, then added for good measure, “You sniveling cowards.”
Outside, a smattering of rough curses broke out, offering some sense of their numbers and locations, as he’d intended. Hearing their impotent anger, he couldn’t restrain a fierce grin.
Near the rear, Linnet hissed, “What are ye smiling for, ye fiend? There’s no way out this end. We can’t get past them. And they’re bloody coming!”
He spared her an apologetic glance. “Dear heart, I am what I am. I’m the Angel of Death, and those men are going to die.”
Her mouth pressed tight, she pushed the mirror’s shrouded bulk flat against the rear opening. The Queen’s men would have to fight their way through it, which would buy him the time he needed to kill them.
What he wouldn’t give for an arquebus, notoriously unreliable as these new firearms were, just to keep them cautious! Because he couldn’t defend both ends at once, and he had Linnet to protect.
He needed to get them out of the wagon into the concealing forest. His best tactic would be to provoke their attackers into rashness and escape in the resulting chaos.
When it came to provocation, a rabble-rouser like Zamiel had ample experience.
“Come on then, you son of a whore,” he called boldly. “I had your mother last night in a Cheapside brothel. She wanted it up the arse.”
Behind him, Linnet gasped. He turned to meet her scandalized gaze and winked.
Outside, men growled and swore. Only a stream of crisp commands from their captain forestalled an all-out rush on his position. Zamiel counted to three and thrust his head out.
“I buggered your captain too,” he shouted into the darkness. “I never knew his name, but I called him Captain Littlefinger, for the length of his prick!”
He dove behind his barricade as a veritable storm of arrows hissed and thudded into the wood. He grinned back at Linnet. “That should do it, I’ll warrant.”
She’d crawled onto the pallet to leave the aisle clear. Over the chest, he could just see her crimson face. Her eyes threw sparks at him.
“What in blazes do ye think ye’re doing?”
“Provoking them.” He shrugged. “They can only come at me one at a time. And the worst thing we can do is give them time to think.”
Indeed, the crunch of footsteps announced a general rush. Zamiel angled his rapier toward the narrow opening and waited. When a hairy hand wrenched the canvas aside, he lunged, blade slicing through the air. The deadly tip met a hidden obstruction and punched through it. Outside, a man howled.
Smoothly he withdrew, noting with satisfaction the rapier’s crimson tip. Blindly, a broadsword swept through the opening, seeking to clear the space. He sprang back from the wicked edge, judged his moment and lunged. This time, through sheer luck, the high-pitched scream of a man in agony told him he’d struck something crucial—a face, perhaps even an eye.
The blood sang in his veins. Here was one brute who wouldn’t be threatening Linnet or any innocent woman again.
After that, the attackers withdrew, cautious. The mutter of a hurried consultation teased his ears, but he couldn’t discern the words.
Impatience bubbled through his blood. The killing rage of a Dominion was pure white fire pouring through him. When he glanced back to the rear entrance, still securely blocked, Linnet winced and raised a hand to shield her eyes.
His eyes must be burning with angel fire, the silver light that had nearly blinded him from his own reflection. Since his exile, he’d been in numerous low brawls and a few stylish duels, but never had the angel fire appeared.
Briefly he wondered what its return now portended. Perhaps only that the stakes had risen, with Linnet’s precious safety at risk.
He turned away to protect her eyes, but he was no more able to tamp down the sizzling frenzy than change himself into a unicorn. Death was his nature and his essence. Lucifer had made him in his own image, and Jehovah Himself had charged him to kill.
Without warning, the canvas tore. The axe-like blade of a halberd plunged into view a handspan before his face and swept downward, opening a gash in the canvas.
Zamiel danced back, rapier sweeping up, deflecting the beak of the killing weapon. But they’d opened a gash wide enough for a man to climb through, giving him another opening to defend.
At the same time, an armored shadow leaped into view through the front.
Zamiel bared his teeth. In a single movement, he drew his main-gauche and sliced sideways, left-handed. Diving beneath the broadsword’s downward blow, he raked viciously across the soldier’s unprotected thighs. With a curse, the man tottered and fell, arms windmilling, from the wagon.
Behind him, Linnet screamed a warning. He pivoted toward the newly opened gash in the canvas to find a scowling soldier climbing through the tear. Before he could react, a heavy tome sailed through the air, pages fluttering, and struck the newcomer a glancing blow.
The man flung up an arm to deflect the missile Linnet had hurled, giving Zamiel the opening he needed to dart in and finish him. Withdrawing his crimson blade from the intruder’s throat, Zamiel raised a booted leg and kicked him through the canvas.
For an instant, both openings were clear. Linnet crouched in readiness beside the pallet, another missile at the ready. He dared not look at her, fearing his fiery gaze would blast her eyes to cinders. But he could hear her praying in a whisper.
His brave darling was terrified. A shaft of guilt sliced through him, piercing the bright armor of his rage more swiftly than any steel.
Jehovah save his soul, was she terrified of him?
Swallowing hard, he marshaled words to his tongue. Although he sought to muffle the killing rage, it resonated in his voice.
“I could do this all night, dear heart, but I rather think we should be going now.”
“I’ll just summon my carriage then, shall I?” she said tartly.
He grinned. She hadn’t lost her head, had she, his bold beauty? A surge of pride and love rolled through him. He wanted to run to her, crush her in his arms, kiss her until they were both gasping.
Later, he promised himself. That seductive prospect sent the blood rushing to his groin and made him harden, there in the midst of battle. Truly, the male form was an extraordinary creation.
An acrid odor seeped into his nostrils and stung his throat, making him cough. They must have overturned a candle somewhere...
“Blessed Mother, they’ve fired the roof!” she cried.
The hungry crackle of flames followed her words. His gaze lifted. Overhead, the canvas roof was blackening, tendrils of smoke swirling through the seams to fill the enclosed space.
“Right, then,” he said. “Time to go.”
She was already tugging the shrouded mirror, dragging it away from the rear seam facing the forest. No sooner had she cleared
the space than a streak of fire whistled through it, making her gasp. The fiery arrow thudded into the wooden chest. She raced to smother the little flame.
“They’ve surrounded us,” she told him, white-faced.
For the first time, Zamiel felt a qualm of something unpleasant, a quiver in the belly. A moment ago, he’d been blazing with battle-rage. Now, suddenly, he was cold. He supposed he was being introduced to yet another mortal emotion.
Fear.
This isn’t a game, he realized starkly. She could die. You could die, and your soul sent straight to Hell. You’ve killed without remorse, and gone unconfessed.
The prospect of his own death seemed too fantastical to believe. But the thought that Linnet might suffer harm was not to be borne.
He struggled to clear his thoughts, to focus on the exigencies of the moment. There must be a way out of the death trap this wagon had become.
But the flames were spreading, bright fingers of fire creeping down the canvas walls. Within minutes, their refuge would be a fiery inferno. A wall of frustration rose up to choke him. And the fact that his palms were sweating made him furious.
Linnet was coughing, crouched near the floor where the smoke was thinner. Zamiel’s eyes were stinging, his throat burning. Desperately he assessed the rear exit and the dark forest beyond.
“We’re going out,” he said grimly. “Stay close behind me.”
Coughing too hard to respond, she raised streaming eyes to his face and nodded. But he read the despair in her face. Their chances were not good, fleeing into a hail of arrows from the Queen’s enraged soldiers. But at least they risked a clean death under the open sky rather than the flames.
Linnet crawled across the floor. As she brushed past the mirror, the velvet drape slithered free, baring its shimmering expanse. Zamiel caught a glimpse of his own stark face, eyes grim and staring, angel fire quenched by the cold hand of terror.
She too glanced at the polished plate, and her eyes widened.
“For the love of Heaven, don’t look at the thing,” he said hoarsely, throat on fire from the smoke. Carefully, he extended his rapier and parted the canvas flap. If he could plot a clear line of escape to the trees—
Laura Navarre - [The Magick Trilogy 02] Page 20