Lilith took the rose from behind her ear and plucked its petals, one by one. “You’ve come far, and in such a short time. That’s the thing I envy about humans. What I envied most about Eve: your species can accomplish almost anything they set their minds to. Flight without wings, faith without meeting God. Immortals have such limited imagination. We copy humanity’s inventions and thrive off their beliefs. That’s why our technology looks like yours. We may give inspiration, but it’s humans that develop our ideas.”
Dawn tinged the sky pink, and Phenex rose on the horizon. Lilith stretched her arms. The door slid open behind us, and I turned to see a haggard Samael, muttering to himself. His hair was mussed, and his robe hung unevenly off one shoulder. He stopped abruptly when he saw us, his piercings flashing in the sun.
“Lilith?” he said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
Lilith rose from the bench. “You look like Cerberus made you his chewtoy. What happened?”
“The Watchers happened. They’ve escaped, and chances are they’re trying to capture the Magda- I mean, Shannon.”
Lilith and I glanced at each other. “She knows,” Lilith said.
Samael cursed. “Why would you tell her that? Knowing what she is will just put Shannon in more danger!”
Lilith shrugged. “It’s the Magdalene’s right to know what you have planned for her.”
“You should have told me a long time ago,” I said, crossing my arms. “Like back when I used your scythe without needing to go home in a matchbox.”
Samael looked weary. “The Magdalene prophecy is ancient. I didn’t want to give citizens like Damien false hope. And I’ve waited too long for you to be taken from me by the angels or Watchers. The less you know, the better off you are.”
“You can’t just keep me in the dark forever,” I said.
“You’re a mayfly that has no inkling what you’re capable of,” Samael said. “The Lapis Exillis is a cross no one should bear. I suffered under its weight for eons, and never once was it easy to wield.”
Lilith flashed Samael a shrewd look. “Shannon lacks your fatal flaw: pride. The Lapis Exillis won’t overpower her.”
“You may be right,” Samael said, “but the Lapis Exillis is still a gamble. If we can realign the otherworlds and return our allies’ power, we can free ourselves from Heaven’s shackles. Shannon wouldn’t have to use the stone and endanger herself.”
Lilith frowned. “No action against Heaven is worthwhile unless it is bold. Don’t you tire of being Father’s pawn?”
There were bruises under Samael’s eyes. He slumped against the wall. “Of course. But we can’t act impulsively with so many lives at stake.”
“Then don’t sacrifice lives. Assemble the Lapis Exillis,” Lilith said. She placed an encouraging hand on my shoulder. “Shannon, untold people would be indebted to you. You could make more of a difference than millennia of politicking and wars have.”
“If she assumes the duties of the Magdalene, she will be the target of both Heaven and the Watchers. It’s too risky,” Samael said. He lit a cigarette from his pocket and took a slow drag.
“Don’t I get a say?” I said.
He expelled smoke from his nose. “No.”
“I can make my own decisions.” I collected myself. “I want to help Damien and the other refugees. I want to give these people a home again.”
Samael’s features hardened. Silence stretched between us. “Using the Lapis Exillis is not as simple as Lilith claims,” he finally said. “You’d have to master each of the seven shards. The shards owe allegiance to different masters, and you’d have to show proficiency with all seven weapons to recreate the Lapis Exillis.” He paused to smoke. “We’d be acting in open defiance of Heaven. If the angels found out, it would mean war.”
“Aren’t you already at war with them?” I asked.
Samael stubbed his cigarette out with his boot. His lip ring shone in the dawn. “Not outright. It’s more of a covert cold war. We’ve been at stalemate for centuries. And with the Watcher’s escape, we need Heaven on our side to combat them. We’d be double-timing the angels.” Samael smirked. “Not that that’s unprecedented.”
Lilith checked the sun’s course and rose from the bench. “It’s almost breakfast. I’m meeting Deus for coffee. Let me know when Shannon’s training begins, and I will be at your disposal.”
“Training?” I echoed.
Samael nodded. “You’ll need to train with the archdemons to master their shards. That includes me, Lilith, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Astaroth, Belial, and Rofocale.”
Lilith flashed me a smile. She launched into the air and sailed over the hedges.
I yawned. “I couldn’t sleep a wink.”
“Lilith is dangerous,” Samael warned.
I stretched. “I noticed. Anyways, I thought you two had a thing.”
Samael looked defensive. “Centuries ago. We’re friends now. My relationships don’t tend to last long.”
I snorted. “I wonder why. And if she’s dangerous, what are you, Hannibal Lecter?”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“Can I go now? I still haven’t slept.”
Samael obliged.
Chapter 8
After approximately an hour of explaining what the heck had happened to a shaken Divya and Rosanna, I crashed into bed, a vortex of snores. It was the weekend, and I slept until Saturday afternoon, getting over twelve hours of shuteye. Rosanna suppressed her curiosity until she could no longer bear it and poked me awake at half past one.
I groaned, drool on my pillow.
“You slept like you were hibernating. I can’t take it anymore. Tell me more.” She bounced onto the mattress beside me.
I rubbed my eyes of sleep-grit. “I already told you everything. I don’t know anymore.”
“But you have to. Are the Orishas real?”
“Apparently. And Ochún’s supposed to be a hippie,” I said, recalling the Orisha of water we’d gifted last month.
Rosanna’s green eyes widened. “What about la Llorona?” she said.
I shrugged. “I think so. I mean, the gods are real, and there are werewolves, and vampires, so I’m guessing ghosts exist.”
“So all the times I prayed to Virgin Mary and the saints, they actually heard me?”
“Maybe. I don’t know how prayer works.”
“San Miguel was fierce. Just like a warrior of God. The way he killed the cadejo…” Rosanna shivered. “He scares me.”
I remembered how Michael had rammed his flaming sword through Samael. “Me too.”
Rosanna’s desire to discuss last night’s events wilted, eclipsed by fear. We dressed and went to brunch, meeting a solemn Divya, still rattled by her encounter with the hellhound. Her eyes were haunted.
“Shannon, are you alright?” Divya said quietly.
“I’m fine. Are you?”
Divya trembled and looked past my ear at the omelet bar. “I… I’ve believed in the gods for so long, done puja each day to honor them, but the reality of them? It’s too much. If angels are real, Shiva and Parvati are too. Why have they never answered my prayers? Why haven’t they spoken to me? How many people have they appeared to?”
Divya angrily bit into her toast. “If humans can’t speak of their divine experiences, then there could be dozens, maybe hundreds of people that have met the gods. Do they even need our worship? Has everything I’ve done been for nothing?” Wiping marmalade from her lips, she gazed stonily at the ground.
I reached out for her hand. “Of course they do. Human belief is what gives the gods power.”
Divya shook her head. “That hellhound was terrible. I can’t sleep without thinking about how it bit you, all the blood.” She seemed to steel herself against something. “When I was little, my sister would tease me about rakshasas and how they would come to eat me if I played in the woods, just like they ate Brahma. I thought she was being stupid, but I stayed out of the woods anyway, just to be safe. Do I have to live my
life like that now? Always looking over my shoulder, thinking a rakshasa might attack?”
“Whatever a rakshasa is, they have no reason to come after you,” I said. I squeezed her hand. “The hellhound was after me. It was just a coincidence that you saw it in the woods.”
Divya bit her lip. “Rakshasas are cannibals. And even if they don’t attack me, the thought that things like them are after you pisses me off. How can you protect yourself with an oversized key?”
I forced a smile. “I’ve managed to so far. Kind of...”
Rosanna sipped her coffee. “I think we need to fight back,” she said.
“No! I’m not involving you guys in this. It’s too dangerous,” I said.
“Pfft, please,” Rosanna snorted. “You don’t get to decide what we do. The cadejo would have killed us all. It doesn’t matter that it was only after you. With Divya’s brains, your key thingy, and my psychic powers, we could actually make a kickass team.”
“Hmm. Rosanna has a point,” said Divya. “These things are coming onto our campus. We should at least be ready if it happens again.”
“It won’t,” I said firmly. “Samael has this under control.”
Rosanna narrowed her eyes. “I don’t trust this Samael guy. He sounds shady. Isn’t he basically the Devil?”
“Erm, well, yeah. But Heaven’s kind of evil. Nothing’s black and white.”
“No wonder I didn’t like the angels,” Divya said. She steepled her fingers under her chin. “I have some books on folklore that I brought to college to prep for my World Religions class. I’ll dig through them and see if I can find anything.”
Rosanna bobbed her head in agreement. “And I’ve got my abuela’s ‘recipe’ book. It’s chockfull of weirdo potions and stuff.”
“You guys, this is totally unnecessary. I can take care of this,” I said, making a cutting motion with my hands. “You don’t need to worry.”
“Yes we do,” Rosanna said. “It was almost our heads on a plate. We’re going to deal with this together.”
“And how do you know that Samael’s on your side?” Divya said. “The gods can be double-faced. I’m sure it’s the same for demons.”
“Because he’s saved me, multiple times,” I said. “And if you guys are so deadest on helping me, then we need to be careful. This stuff is dangerous.”
“We know,” Divya said, her eyes hard.
Someone cleared their throat. I looked up to see Mo behind Rosanna. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked.
“No,” we said in unison.
“Good. I hope you girls are enjoying your morning. Except for you, Shannon.”
I stuck out my tongue.
“Hey, Rosanna. Great dress. Can I get the notes for the lecture on Chaucer?” Mo asked in his lady-killer voice.
Rosanna smiled. “Sure.”
“You guys are in British Literature together?” I blurted.
They looked at me like I was crazy. “Yeah, so what?” Mo said.
I flashed him a warning look, trying to communicate that if he put the moves on my roommate, there would be hell to pay. But he, oblivious, slid into the seat next to Rosanna and bantered with her. Divya left to refill her tea, leaving me to scowl at my twin, contemplating the possibility of being sexiled by my brother.
My phone beeped. I flipped it open. There was a text from a string of sixes: “LAY LOW FOR THE WEEKEND, MAGGOT. I’LL MEET YOU ON MONDAY AT 7, THE USUAL PLACE.” Then the screen died. I clicked my phone on, only to see the message had disappeared.
Apparently, the Devil knew my number.
The weekend passed in a blur. Sunday night was filled with coffee, cramming for a chemistry test, and blasting David Bowie on repeat to distract me from my panic. The exam came Monday like a guillotine to the neck. I stumbled out of the classroom and trudged to biology lab, where we were dissecting frogs. I sat next to Divya, who was dressed in a crisp white lab coat, her hair tied back. I donned goggles and we set to work skinning the amphibian.
“Scalpel,” Divya said.
I handed it to her, and she made an incision. She used forceps to pry back the frog’s flesh and expose the creature’s heart. I reached in with tweezers and removed its organs, one by one, placing them on a laminated diagram of the frog’s anatomy. We paused to take notes on the process in our lab books.
“It’s female,” I said, noting the eggs.
Divya paused from writing. “Do you think we’re like this frog?”
I slid my goggles onto my brow. “What do you mean?
She twisted her silver rings. “Just experiments. Something to entertain the gods.”
I set my pen down. “I think we’re here for a better reason than that. Maybe we came first, and the gods are our experiments.”
Divya frowned. “I don’t like either of those options.”
I arrived at the lake at 7:00. Samael was skipping stones, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket.
“I got your text,” I said. “Really? Your area code is 666?”
He smirked, septum piercing flashing. “Did you have an exciting day at school? Crash any keggers?”
“No. College students don’t party every day of the week. I was murdered by a test, and then I dissected a frog.” I sat on a boulder and wrapped my arms round my knees. “So are we training today, or what?”
His face darkened. “The archdemons know what you are now. They want to test you.”
“But I just had an exam!”
He lobbed a smooth rock at the lake. It skimmed the surface twelve times. “The angels suspect what you are. They know you’re an ascendant, and soon, they’ll think you’re the Magdalene. We need to prepare you immediately.”
I threw up my hands in defeat. “Fine, do what you want. But can we get drinks at Damien’s first?”
Samael smiled. “Sure.”
We arrived at the bar shortly thereafter. I downed two glasses of soda and was working on a third. Damien set to washing dishes while Samael nursed his absinthe.
The werewolf’s eyes shone. “So it’s true? She can use the scythe?”
“Yes, for the umpteenth time, she’s the Magdalene. But don’t tell anyone.” Samael burped.
“Excuse you,” I said.
Samael grinned lopsidedly. “Hell’s citizens can’t know what’s at stake.”
Damien nodded. “My pack’s tracking the Watchers. They’ve set up camp on Earth, but we haven’t had any direct run-ins with them. They’re lying low.”
“As to be expected,” Samael said. He finished his absinthe and swiped a peanut from a jar, cracking it open with his fang and munching on the nut’s meat.
“Come back once you’re done,” Damien said.
“Sure,” I said.
We left in Samael’s hearse for the capitol building, the Hellopolis. It was built like the Parthenon, with soaring columns, rising high above Pandemonium on a merciless hill. The River Styx, red as blood, rushed along behind it, and a great statue carved of white stone jutted from the hill-face, depicting a falling angel reaching for a seven-pointed star. A valet took the hearse away. I looked for a road to the entrance, finding none.
Samael’s wings burst from his back and he held out his arms as if to embrace me. “Free hugs.”
I put two and two together. “Oh no. Oh no no no. I hate heights.”
“Too bad.” He scooped me up and we rocketed off the ground. We joined a throng of flying demons – secretaries, clerks, businessmen, all streaming above us on their way to the Hellopolis. Tails snaked out of pencil skirts and pens were tucked behind horns. My stomach dropped as the ground receded.
“I hate you,” I said, queasy. “If I barf, it’s all your fault.”
“Ruin my jacket and I’ll feed you to Leviathan.”
Just as soon as we had taken flight, Samael landed, depositing me on the marble floor. I gaped at the beauty of the building. Samael tugged at my arm. “Let’s go, maggot.”
“Stop calling me that.”
He la
ughed and led me inside.
We entered a cross between a courtroom and a stadium, with row upon row of seating rising to the ceiling. A large oculus framed the sun, and seven platforms stood before me, fronting an elevated dais at the center of the room. I squinted to see the six figures who sat on the platforms – Lilith, Asmodeus, and Beelzebub, alongside three demons I didn’t recognize, with the middle platform empty.
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