Umbriel knew it too. He twisted around to look at Hadraniel in horror. “Are you mad? There are hundreds of mortal souls near.”
“I did say,” drawled Severin, and then everybody moved at once. Silver ribbons grew along the floor. A ball of molten glass darted toward Umbriel. Aleth spread his arms wide while Max hurled a box of pens. Candy jumped to the top of a bookcase and knocked all the books out of it as she jumped to another one. The red glow pulsed like a heart and then flickered like a candle about to go out. Somewhere Dolores was singing. X lunged toward Rhianna, who had something small and metal in her hand, and Branwyn stopped noticing anything else.
Her heart in her throat, her fists clenched with helplessness, she ran into the room and slid on the mess on the floor, landing badly on her hip and scrambling to her feet again. Then a wave of force threw Max past her and knocked her on her back.
There was a snapping sound but X didn’t stop. The chiming grew louder and the smell of sulfur was enough to make Branwyn want to vomit as she rolled to her feet. Rhianna ducked behind the bookshelf and Candy ran along the top to once again grab at X. It seemed like it had all happened before, and would happen again.
Dolores stopped singing and the red wound in the world above Umbriel’s head blossomed, unfolding petals to become a portal through the veil. It sank down to the floor and Umbriel snarled, “Go, and take your pet.” He slashed again at the silver ribbons snaking around Hadraniel. There was a charred hole in his suit at the shoulder, and crimson to match the glow of the wounded world.
Hadraniel brought both hands together and the white glow once again became a diffuse blue light. Without responding to Umbriel, Hadraniel plunged through the portal and X followed behind. Then Umbriel held out his hand and commanded, “Rhianna, come now.”
Rhianna ran out from behind the bookcase, straight to Umbriel. He took her by the arm and stepped backward into the portal. Rhianna craned her head as she went with him, finding Branwyn. She looked exhilarated, frightened, and a little embarrassed when she met Branwyn’s gaze. Then the portal sealed over and they were gone.
“Dolores!” growled Severin, reaching out his hand toward her as she picked her way through the devastation.
“No good,” she said, shaking her head. “The fires of judgement were coming. We would have all lost our vessels and the girl’s good work in luring Hadraniel into a body would have been unrecoverable. And now that it has one, it will not abandon it easily.”
Severin glanced at Branwyn, his expression hard, then turned away and leaned his forehead against another shelf, flexing his fingers.
Max said, “That was going well, before Umbriel showed up. Oh, and before X pulled Belial out of nowhere. Fuck!”
“Somebody spoiled sport,” said Candy angrily. “And somebody’s going to die.” Her gaze darted over to Branwyn and Penny.
“Don’t let your hunger for death push you into a dangerous mistake,” warned Severin, lifting his head. “Branwyn’s sister is Umbriel’s creature; she obviously warned him of what we planned.”
“Then she can be the one to die,” snapped Candy. “If you knew, you can do the honors.”
Aleth said to Max, “Bad timing. I should have noticed Belial before.”
Dolores murmured, “Hadraniel has never been the fool. He plans well.”
Branwyn, trembling from waves of adrenalin, said, “That was Rhianna’s boss?” She vaguely remembered Rhianna recognizing the second angel but everything had started to go to hell around then.
“Yes,” said Severin witheringly. “Or do you think they fell in love mid-battle and ran off to Elysium together?”
Branwyn saw red for a heartbeat, and reassembled events in her head. “He’s her boss. That’s all.”
“She should have been smarter than to betray us,” said Candy hotly. “And she had such good makeup too. It’s going to be all messed up when I cut her throat.”
Clenching her fists, Branwyn said, “Don’t even think about it.”
“What are you going to do to stop me?” sneered Candy. “She’s more than earned it.”
Penny said hurriedly, “If she works for Umbriel won’t he be even more annoyed if you go after his employee?”
“Nah,” said Max. “I mean, he may be, but not enough to risk his own skin if there’s any kind of justification. Not when we’re just talking about her life.” He sounded thoughtful more than enraged.
Aleth said, “True,” and the chill in his voice told Branwyn he was angry too.
“She’s probably going to die, cupcake. Best get used to the idea. Lives of grand adventure are usually pretty short,” said Severin, putting his head back on the bookshelf. “Think about how she betrayed you too. It might help.”
Penny’s fingers found Branwyn’s hand and Branwyn squeezed them so hard it must have hurt. “Where the hell were you, anyhow?” It was a distraction, she knew it was only a distraction but she really needed a distraction right then so she could think around the fear squeezing her heart. “Maybe you’re the one who ruined Candy’s fun, called in Hadraniel’s backup.”
He gave her a scornful glance. “You don’t even believe that. As soon as Umbriel walked in I could see how it would go. I came here to wait.”
“Except you didn’t predict that X would have fucking Belial,” prompted Max. “Because how could anybody have predicted that kind of insanity?” He glanced at Penny and Branwyn. “I mean, I know about insane choices and fucking Christ that was award-winning.”
“No,” said Severin shortly. “I missed that detail until they got outside Dolores’ suppression. He cut right through the web I’d spun over the door.”
Aleth flickered in and out of existence and then said, “Rhianna has already left Umbriel’s protection. Who will claim her? Max, you have a prior interest.”
Max tilted his head as if considering the idea, but it was Candy who muttered, “How can such a clever girl be so stupid?
“Me,” said Branwyn sharply. “I have the oldest claim. Nobody is killing my sister just because she did her job. I don’t care how frustrated you are. She was an idiot but not as stupid as each of you. You all knew she was working for the guy who originally made the device.”
Candy’s eyes flashed and she stalked toward Branwyn. “Nobody calls me stupid.”
“I do if that’s what you are. What are you going to do about it, kill me too? Stupid monster. No wonder one of your kind is following Hadraniel around like a puppy.” Branwyn shook off Penny’s hand and tightened her grip on her hammer.
Dolores said, with a catch in her voice, “Shall we be weakened when next we see our stolen brother? That is where this goes.”
Candy stopped herself with a little skip, staring at Branwyn with narrowed eyes. Her gaze moved up and down Branwyn’s body like she was assessing what was underneath in a way creepily incongruous with Candy’s twelve-year-old shape. Branwyn shifted her weight, presenting less of a frontal target, still prepared for Candy to jump on her and hoping like hell it wouldn’t come to that.
Candy’s eyes came to rest on Branwyn’s collarbone for a long moment. “Fine. You’ve claimed her, you deal with her. You’ve got a year and a day to make her pay for how she betrayed us.” She looked around, her posture shifting until it culminated in a full-body wiggle. “Now I need to work off some of this energy or everybody’s going to regret it. Who’s going to help me?”
After a moment of silence, Max looked around and then stretched his back. “I guess I will.”
“Oh goodie,” said Candy, grabbed his hand, and dragged him off into the stacks beyond the shattered stationary room.
“Where are they going?” asked Penny uncertainly.
“Don’t think too hard about it,” suggested Severin, turning around and looking at Branwyn with glinting eyes.
She looked away, over at Aleth. “You okay with this year and a day thing?”
“I will extract my own price from your sister, but you need not fear it will threaten her mortal existence.
That would waste a valuable resource.” He kept talking over Branwyn’s attempt to tell him that was bullshit. “But for now I must repair my vessel. We will discuss a new plan, Severin.” He turned and Branwyn realized that an injury running from his abdomen down his thigh—a killing injury—had been sealed over with a dull silver shimmer. If that was an injury from one of the two Swords— and it looked like a cut, not a burn— then he’d almost died.
“Sure,” said Severin. “We might have to get a little more complicated now. I’m sure there’ll be no problem staying on track, what with everybody playing so nicely and Hadraniel knowing we’re coming for him. It’ll be even easier now.”
“Yet it is embodied now. And you still have me,” said Dolores calmly.
Severin said grudgingly, “That’s true.”
“The mortal authorities are downstairs now,” Dolores added. “Remember to put away your tools before they start shooting at them.” She moved her hand, pulling a fold of the veil in front of her and vanishing. Aleth vanished at almost the same time.
Severin strode across the room and took both Branwyn and Penny by the arms. “Might be a little bumpy because of Miss Karzan here. Let’s find out.”
Branwyn probably should have hit him with her hammer when he grabbed her, but she was exhausted and shocked. And compared to all the other kaiju, he was familiar. And yet it was important to maintain her standards. She compromised by not leaning on him.
Blackness dropped over all three of them, pressing tightly against Branwyn like a sleeping bag. Then they were floating in a space she had visited once before. She’d been just as exhausted and disoriented last time, but she remembered velvet darkness with windows of light circling around them. And last time there hadn’t been Penny, who glowed with her own radiance and stood ten feet tall, looking around curiously.
Hmm, said Severin’s voice in her head. She’s big. But she’ll squeeze. He pulled Branwyn close to his chest and she realized something else was different from last time he’d given her this kind of lift.
One of the windows rushed forward to pass over them and Penny yelped, her cry like a vibrating string in the strange space.
Then their feet touched the pavement outside of Branwyn and Marley’s apartment. Penny looked once again like her normal self. Severin released both of them and stepped back. Before he could vanish, Branwyn said, “Are you taller than you were before Simon killed you?”
His expression inscrutable, he said, “Maybe you’re smaller. You ought to do something about your hair if you want to stay out of jail, cupcake.” Then he did disappear.
Penny said, “That was trippy. Everything shrank. But convenient. Very convenient. Hmm. Do you think the faeries can do that too?”
Branwyn touched her green hair and then shook her head. Marley’s car was still missing. And she had no idea where Rhianna was. And later there was a gala to attend. She had a busy and probably upsetting day ahead and it was only 10 AM.
Marley first, she decided, and remembered Hadraniel talking about the insight of ravens.
Chapter Eighteen
Marley
Marley’s magic surged around her. The virus brightened until it was everything she could sense. Everything became nothing.
And then—
Marley sat in a coffee shop, in the corner of a battered old couch, her feet tucked under her and a book cracked open on the arm beside her. She frowned and picked up the book, smoothing a rumpled page and then closing it over her finger as she looked around for something to use as a bookmark.
The coffee shop was full of people, but all their faces were curiously blurred. They spoke to each other, but the noise was abstracted: the practiced murmur of a movie crowd scene. Even the music was odd, with a chant-like element that she couldn’t understand.
The virus wearing Corbin’s face sat down across from her, putting two steaming mugs on the table. She tugged out one of the napkins under the drinks to tuck inside the book. She couldn’t read the writing inside or on the cover, but that hardly mattered. You didn’t treat books that way. And trying to work out the language gave her an excuse not to look at the virus.
“You wanted to talk,” pointed out the virus. “It’s your own fault you’re in this cage now. And it’s hardly an unpleasant one.”
“You’ve put in a book with a cracked spine that I can’t read.” She caught the virus smiling out of the corner of her eye. “And you still look like Corbin.”
“But you like books. And Corbin,” said the virus, with a completely unbelievable innocence.
“Oh shut up,” she said, and then asked, “Is Corbin someplace like this when you’re controlling him?”
The virus put his hand on his chest. “Controlling him? Me? I’m helping Corbin, my girl. Without me he would have surrendered to death after the Pointer family passed on.”
Marley turned her head to glare at him. “After you killed them, you mean.”
He wobbled his hand from side to side as if it was a statement with multiple angles. “It’s hard for me to think of it that way. Besides, I am what I have been for an aeon. Corbin is the one who freed me from my cage, and Corbin is the one who contains me now.”
“How are you contained?” said Marley hotly. “You spread to me, you spread to his friends, and to others too, from what Skadi’s said. That’s not contained.”
He chuckled and stirred his coffee. “Ah, Skadi, a font of honesty. You like knowing things, Marley? I can tell you all sorts of things. They’d freeze your blood and stab your ears and sear your dreams. True things, too, no wobble to them, no Skadi spin. Want to hear?”
Marley shot back, “Let me go first, and then I’d love to hear them.”
“Oh, come on,” said the virus reproachfully. “Letting people go isn’t how I work. I can’t just say, oops, never mind, I ended up here by accident, I’ll just return what I’ve stolen and erase this part of myself.”
“So I’m here until I die, too?” Marley opened the book again and stared at the odd characters.
“Would you like more books?” the virus asked solicitously. “A croissant? I can imagine a wicked croissant.”
Marley frowned at the book. If she looked closely, that squiggle there looked like a ‘w.’ Then she glanced up. “What happens to the part of you in me if I die?”
“I promise, that’ll be the very last thing you learn. You can look forward to it!”
She set her jaw, looking back at the book again. If she couldn’t read it as written, maybe she could invent her own story. It had a pulpy cover, of a woman with long blond hair and full armor facing an ice dragon. It was some kind of fantasy, then. The woman looked a little like Skadi, which gave her a starting place. She flipped through it, staring at the other illustrations. A tree with islands in its branches. A scene where the blonde woman groomed a horse with too many legs. A raven that seemed to look right out of the page at her. But she couldn’t keep any of it in her head enough to spin a story. She was too upset.
After a while, the virus went away. After it was gone, Marley put down the book and covered her face. This place almost felt real. Her body felt real. It was some kind of dream, but it was a very vivid one and no matter how she tried she couldn’t wake up. She couldn’t use her magic, either. There was no Sight here, no charms, no Geometry, no danger-sight. It was just what she’d been imagining her life as a day or two ago. Except in the real world, people had faces.
She’d been so complacent about Corbin. So confident that he was out there, fine, doing his work. She thought he’d just been annoyed with her for how she wouldn’t tell Zachariah off. But she’d searched through their text conversations for any sign of that and what she’d found was her guilt and his patience. He was angry at Zachariah for his own reasons, but she was the one who was angry at herself. Especially after she’d let Zachariah convince her to spend the night.
No, not complacent. She’d wanted Corbin to come back but she’d never told him that, never admitted that to herself, just like
she’d never admitted her anger at herself. And instead he’d slowly stopped talking to her.
Because he’d been infected by a supernatural mind-controlling virus. That was it, wasn’t it? She had to re-evaluate everything about their online conversations or lack thereof in light of his infection.
The buzz of the crowd changed and the virus sat back down, looking at her with alert interest. It wasn’t wearing the same clothes as Corbin: instead of jeans and a t-shirt it wore loose cloth trousers and some kind of old-fashioned fitted jerkin that left muscled arms bare, all in icy tones.
“What do you want?” Marley asked dully.
“It looked like you’d passed through the denial phase so I thought maybe you’d like something to be angry at now.” The virus winked.
“I’m already angry at you, thanks.” She fumbled for the book again and found it blank.
“Oh, not me. There’s no point in being angry at me. I was tucked away snug in my box before Skadi handed it to Corbin to open.”
“What?” demanded Marley. “She did not.” The buzz in the cafe vanished. When she glanced around, the faceless figures still acted out their roles, but it was like the mute button had been pressed.
“I promise you she did. She’s been my keeper for, oh, ages. I notice everything she does.”
“Why would she purposefully infect Corbin and then try to heal him? That’s insane.”
Instead of answering her question, the virus said, “Corbin’s bloodline is a funny one. You met his parents. What did you think of them?” The virus looked at a table nearby and the two figures there developed the faces of Corbin’s mother and father. Elizabeth and Aedrian.
“I thought they were…” Marley hesitated, looking for the right word. “Disengaged.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked closely at the virus, trying to see past Corbin’s face.
The virus touched the mug on the table and then tilted it until a trickle of coffee spilled. He began to draw in the liquid, leaving patterns that were slow to close. “I’ve dug down and found his memories of his infancy, his kinder years. His mother was engaged then, oh yes. Mortal biology dictates so much. It didn’t last. But that doesn’t matter. The power he inherited from his mother’s line was weak and easily overshadowed by what his father lost when Corbin was born.”
Divinity Circuit (Senyaza Series Book 5) Page 21