by Nazri Noor
Damn it all to hell.
20
“We’re fucked,” I muttered, hating that I had no real recourse for destroying the brothers.
“I didn’t think the gas would actually kill them,” Crystal said. “That stuff’s good enough to kill people, but I’ve never fought angels.”
“You did well,” Dantaleon said, a surprising softness in his voice. I could barely conceal my irritation, and perhaps my jealousy, at how he’d so readily come to praise a girl he’d known for less than a day. He hovered forward, approaching the angels. “Stand clear, children.”
“Children?” Crystal said, scoffing, looking at me in disbelief. “Just who is he calling children, exactly? Why, I oughta – ”
We’d fought alongside each other for years, but sometimes Pierce’s immense speed still took me by surprise. He caught Crystal by the waist, pulling her to the threshold of the building as she sputtered and protested. See, Pierce and I knew better. When Dantaleon said to stand clear, what he really meant was that we should have started running ten minutes ago.
Still several feet away, the angels stopped advancing. From that distance it was clear that the two were cut from the same cloth, the only true difference being the color of their hair. Mirrors of each other, the angels each held out the opposite hand, pointing them like the twin barrels of some strange celestial weapon.
It was definitely time to clear out.
The day turned even colder as the first of what appeared like sparkling jewels emerged from the angels’ hands. They were shards of ice, little icicles with the shape and sharpness of jagged diamonds, spraying like a hail of gunfire. I hesitated, caught between running and casting a protection spell when I suddenly found myself standing at the threshold to the abandoned building.
I looked around, blinking, wondering how I’d been transported when I found Crystal’s hands on my shoulders.
“How?” I began to say.
She winked at me. “Dabbler, remember? Short-range teleportation. Now shut up. Here come the fireworks.”
Crystal had shunted us far enough away from the danger of the barrage of ice, but she’d also positioned us perfectly to witness the real reason we hadn’t been cut down by a stream of icicles. Dantaleon’s pages faced the angels head on, an enormous gout of fire roaring in shrieking torrents from between his covers.
The air quivered where the two streams met, ice hissing and sputtering as it turned into steam, fire guttering out as the cold and wet doused it, bit by bit. The grass underneath was damp, then dry, then burnt into a twisted crisp. Still Dantaleon and the angels emanated their magics. It was a stalemate, and by the time one side tired out and succumbed to the other, the field would be turned into mud, or scorched outright.
“This could go on forever,” I murmured. Dantaleon’s stores of magic ran deep, but who knew how much power the angels had brought with them? Something had to give.
Thunder cracked. A streak of lightning split the sky, striking Dantaleon. His scream filled the air as he spiraled to the ground in a flurry of scattered parchment. Instinct took over and I strained to run for him, but Pierce held me back. My fists clenched with frustration.
Both the angels halted their assault as the first few drops of rain fell to the earth. Nuriel laughed as he lifted one hand to the clouds, letting the rain drip between his fingers.
“See, brother? Adriel regains his power. He sent that lightning to help us.”
“But also as a message. We are needed.” Baradiel raised his head to the sky, fixing me with his gaze. “Duty calls. We will see you again, princeling scum. Perhaps next time you will fight us fairly instead of hiding behind your nursemaid.”
My fists clenched harder.
“Brother,” said Nuriel. “Perhaps a parting gift?”
Baradiel’s smile was thin as he bowed his head. “It is only polite. A present for the princeling.”
The two vanished to the sound of huge, beating wings, fucking off to wherever it was they were needed. I would have breathed a sigh of relief if I hadn’t known to take their threat so seriously. The sky was already darkening.
“Inside,” I said. “Now.”
Quick as a flash, Pierce retrieved Dantaleon from the field as we all rushed into the building. The world outside turned from a calm California morning into a Siberian snowstorm in the span of an instant. No, not snow. Hail.
“Those things are as big as bowling balls,” Pierce said, his hands pressed up against a window.
“Will you get away from there?” I barked. “Just one of them smashes in your face and you’re done for.”
He slunk away from the window, sulking. Crystal shook her head. “I honestly can’t tell if he’s dumb or brave.”
“Unfortunate mix of both,” I said, looking up at the ceiling as massive chunks of ice began to pummel the roof. The building was being bombarded so hard that I could feel the ground reverberating. “I don’t know if they’re trying to smoke us out or bring the place down around our ears.”
“Either isn’t good,” Crystal said, her breathing heavy, her brow lined with anger.
“Then back to defensive magic,” I said. “Help me with this. All of you.”
Pierce and Crystal rushed towards me, joining hands and forming a circle. Even the least experienced among us knew how fundamental casting a circle was, how ceremonial magic could amplify a spell.
More surprising was the fact that Dantaleon joined the circle. Even without a face, something about Dantaleon was so physically expressive, how he was hovering just out of reach, waiting hesitantly before grudgingly placing himself down in the palm of my hand, the leather of his cover brittle and rough against my skin. For once, he was trusting me.
Yet most surprising was how Mr. Wrinkles slipped between Pierce’s legs to enter the circle. He mewed at me, looking directly into my eyes, placing a single paw on my shoe. Crystal wasn’t wrong, after all. There was so much talk about familiars throughout arcane history for a reason. He knew, somehow. Maybe I had to rethink this whole familiar thing.
“What do we do?” Pierce breathed.
“Leave it to me,” I said. “Just lend me your energies.”
I looked up at the sky, penetrating the ceiling with my gaze, envisioning a dome sealing the building even as the world came crashing down outside. I could feel pure arcane force coursing into my body, everything coming to a focal point as my allies infused me with their power, suffused me with magic.
“Now, Quilliam,” said Dantaleon.
I nodded, then called out the words that would save our lives.
“Arma grandia.”
Thin as gossamer, yet hard as steel, a film of magic expanded from my skin. The regular version of the spell was good enough for personal defense, but we needed something to weather the storm.
We fell silent as the force field took root, encasing the building in a protective bubble. The sound of shattering ice was different now, more hollow, more distant. Yet the pace and frequency hadn’t decreased. Nuriel and Baradiel had left us a parting gift, all right.
“The shield isn’t going to hold,” I hissed, feeling every strike against it in my body.
“We’re here for you,” Pierce said, his forehead coated with sweat. “Hang in there.”
“This is my home,” Crystal said, her voice hard. “You have to defend it. It’s all I have.”
Yet the hail storm wouldn’t stop, rattling my bones under its continuous assault. My palm was wet, painful from how deeply my nails were digging into my skin. I feared that my teeth would shatter into powder with how hard I was clenching my jaw.
But the shield shattered first.
From all around us came the noise of breaking glass, shards of my spell falling away, then dissipating as the ice punched through. The building shook as it weathered the attack, until it gave one final, definitive shudder. Somewhere above us, the sound of the second floor ceiling caving in replaced the clamor of the storm.
I fell to my knees. “It�
��s over.”
Crystal’s voice shook when she spoke. “And this place is ruined.”
I raised my head, following her line of sight to the stairs leading to the second floor. A cloud of dust was still suspended there, no doubt shrouding a layer of debris. Pierce tried to stop Crystal, but her body shimmered and she slipped easily from his grasp, teleporting the small distance from our magic circle to the bottom of the staircase.
“No,” she said, covering her mouth, coughing from the dust. “Ruined. Everything’s ruined.”
“We can fix this,” Pierce said, looking between us. “Right?”
Dantaleon floated away from my hand, suspending himself in midair. “No. The witch is right. This place is destroyed, and the condition of it hardly matters. Those angels know where we are now. It will not serve us to stay here. We must keep moving.”
Kicked out of the Palace of Veils, and now we’d destroyed the life of the one person who’d pitied us enough to take us in. “Where would we even go?” I said, looking up through the sweat-laden tangles of my hair. “We have nothing now.”
Crystal rounded on me, advancing so quickly that I scrambled away from the circle. “You have nothing now? You bastards showed up, I gave you food and shelter, and I lost my home in the process. And it’s you who has nothing now? Why don’t you go crawling back to mommy?” She rubbed under her eyes in frustration, her free hand wreathed in purple fire. “Heir of Asmodeus. I can’t believe I fell for it. All of it.”
“We’ll make it up to you,” I said, holding my hand out as a protective gesture, cautiously prepared to either erect a flimsy shield or launch a tepid fireball. “One way or another.”
“You owe me now,” she snarled. “Wherever you go, I’m coming with you. I’m hounding you until I get what I’m owed.”
“But where?” Pierce said, his shoulders sloping, his gaze on the ground. “We’re out of options.”
“Anywhere but here,” I said. “We have to get going, and soon.”
Then came the yowling. Mr. Wrinkles had thrown his head back, emitting an awful sound, the only time in my life I could truly describe something as caterwauling. It was a long, horrible mewl that sounded, somehow, very much like the word “No.”
I reached out to rub him by the scruff, meaning to comfort him, but Mr. Wrinkles swatted at me, leaving a faint series of scratches on the back of my hand. I winced, taken aback by his aggression.
“We have to go, Mr. Wrinkles.” I don’t know why I spoke to him like he could understand me, but I always did. “We have to find someplace to hide.”
“No,” he answered, in another mewl that sounded uncannily, accurately human.
Crystal gawked, looking around at all our faces, then back at Mr. Wrinkles. “You guys? That cat just spoke.”
I frowned at her. “Don’t be ridiculous. It only sounds that way. He’s mimicking us. Aren’t you, boy?” I reached out, only to be met with claws again.
“No,” Mr. Wrinkles repeated. “No! I am tired of you and your utterly condescending baby talk. And I am even wearier of being constantly on the run. When I deigned to follow you home, I did not expect to be hurled into a life of poverty and danger.”
I gaped at Mr. Wrinkles in stunned silence. How does that expression go again? Cat got your tongue?
21
Crystal chewed on the end of her thumb, one hand tucked against her chest, her foot tapping insistently as her eyes flitted across every face in the room – even the cat’s. “You have so much explaining to do.” Her finger drew a line connecting each of us. “All of you.”
I shook my head, clutching the side of my temple, tempted to rip out a fistful of my own hair. “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
She stood on the balls of her feet, her fists clenched tight. “Well, I’m owed an explanation. My home is ruined. I don’t know why I even bothered helping you. I thought I’d get something out of it. Power, demonic favor from a prince? Typical witch, I am, getting fucked over by devils.” She stamped her foot, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “God, I was so stupid.”
The steady drip of melting ice punctuated the destruction of Crystal’s one-time stronghold, puddles of dusty water forming on the kitchen floor from trickles originating upstairs. Pierce wrung his hands together, a ruthless, cold-blooded killer at the best of times, now reduced to apologetic speechlessness. He looked to me hopefully, as if I somehow had a better idea of what to say.
“We have precious little to explain,” Dantaleon said crisply. “And precious little time to do so. We never lied to you, girl. We are all servants of Asmodeus, the demon Prince of Lust.” He sniffed, settling himself on the kitchen table, which had miraculously survived the attack of the ice angels. “Well, perhaps we left out some crucial details.”
He allowed the silence to linger, and I knew it was my turn to fill the air. I nodded. “I’m her heir,” I said. “Which doesn’t mean very much in most terms, because Mother is going to keep her throne forever.” We’d lied to her enough that I didn’t feel entirely bad leaving out the rest of the story. She didn’t need to know about what I had been born and bred to do. That wasn’t relevant.
Crystal thrust her finger out at Mr. Wrinkles, who was grooming himself off in the corner. “What about the cat? You said he wasn’t your familiar. Regular cats don’t just sit there and talk. Regular cats don’t touch you with their paws to lend you magical power.”
I looked down at my hand, realizing she was correct. “I’ve got just as many questions as you. Mr. Wrinkles was a rescue in a very literal sense. Long story short: we found him in the lair of some crazy wizard, and we took him home.”
Mr. Wrinkles groaned, throwing his little head back. “Gods, will you lord that story over me forever and ever? It was the sensible thing to do. My captor wanted me for a pet, but he was a murderer and a brute.” He looked up at me from out of the side of his face, one baleful eye staring. “I agreed to come home with this one because he looked like he bothered to bathe. I could smell the money and privilege wafting off his skin.”
My jaw fell open. Traitor! I looked down at myself, wondering if I should sniff myself to check for my privilege.
Mr. Wrinkles rolled onto his back, his paw falling across his head as he mewled dramatically. “But now all that luxury is gone. The demon-child has gotten himself turned out of his own home. Apartments to rival the splendor of the Palace of Veils! I thought I had it made. A life of pleasure and excess, to be fed and watered for all eternity. But alas.”
Pierce narrowed his eyes at the cat, then at me. “I liked him better when he didn’t know how to talk. Dantaleon, didn’t you ever detect anything strange about this thing?”
Mr. Wrinkles scoffed. “Thing indeed.”
Dantaleon hovered closer to the cat, his pages rustling as Mr. Wrinkles swatted at him warningly with one velveteen paw. “Curious. I confess that I never once noted the vermin’s predilection for arcane power. Talking animals are not unheard of, of course, but those are far more common in books of fiction and fancy than they are in the real world. Why, the two of you quite enjoyed stories about them as children.”
I felt my cheeks enflame, locking eyes with Pierce and seeing that he was blushing, too. “But that doesn’t explain anything,” I said. “And when we met Mr. Wrinkles, he could destroy things just by looking at them.”
Crystal laughed bitterly. “Oh, so he fires lasers from his eyes now?”
Pierce frowned. “It’s true. I don’t see why that’s so funny.”
“Enough,” Mr. Wrinkles said, springing to his feet. “There is much that we can discuss elsewhere. Lightning doesn’t strike twice, they say, but those angels surely will return in time.”
“Whatever else this creature is, it is no fool,” Dantaleon said. “We must get moving. But where?”
“I can’t believe this,” Crystal said. “You people come traipsing in here, eat my food, and everything just goes all to hell, and you can’t even be bothered to apologize? To
help me fix things so this place doesn’t come down all around me?”
“We’re sorry,” Pierce said, very earnestly, I thought. “But you shouldn’t stay here. You should go. Back to your family, maybe?”
The next time Crystal spoke, the building trembled. “Why do you think I’m here in the first place?” Her hands shook. “There’s no one for me.” She rubbed at her eyes angrily, fixing me with a terrifying glare. “You all owe me now,” she snarled. “I don’t care if I’m getting anything out of this pointless bargain. I’m coming with you.”
“Okay,” I said. “You can come.” I raised my hands in a soothing gesture, but also readying myself to cast a shielding spell just in case. I was wary of how her mere voice had created such an eerie effect on the old building. She was either more powerful than she was letting on, or more powerful than she knew. “The question is where?”
Mr. Wrinkles crossed the floor, his tail in the air, then leapt smoothly up onto the sill of the ruined kitchen window, staring out past shards of frosted broken glass. “Quilliam’s usefulness is limited by the fact that he has no access to his collection. In this bizarre chain of accomplices, the son of a demon prince is the weakest link. Pitiful. The wisest course of action for us is to head towards a font of magical power, something that can help restore his ailing abilities.” He looked over his shoulder, locking eyes with me. “I know a place.”
As hurtful as he’d been, I nodded, thoroughly aware that I was agreeing with the plans of a talking cat. I had so, so many questions, but he wasn’t wrong. Power was the priority. My batteries were flat. My only contribution to the battle with the angels was igniting Crystal’s gas, and that was already a stretch.
“The cat is no fool,” Dantaleon said, echoing his earlier sentiment, his voice laden with grudging respect, instead of the mockery I’d expected. “I scarcely believe that I am saying this, but we would be wise to follow his counsel.”