Infinite

by Erica Crouch

  “I held you back from nothing.”

  “It was always you who needed me,” she says. It comes out flat—dead, empty words that fall inside a dead, empty chapel. “You needed me so you wouldn’t lose yourself. And now, look at you.” She gestures around us, but my eyes don’t leave hers. “You have.”

  I swing the sword around with one hand, my shoulder screaming as I slice at her, but she blocks the hit, crossing her blades. She advances on me with her daggers, and she lets one fly. It hits me in my thigh, but I don’t feel it. I just pull the blade out and toss it aside so I can attack again.

  Pen’s quick. I always forget how quick she is. She may not be the most skilled fighter in battle strategy or strength, but her speed gives her an unexpected advantage. She flies around me, dodging the black blade of my sword and sending another dagger through the air with a flick of her wrist. This time, it sinks into the tendons of the hand I’m holding the vial with.

  My muscles spasm and I drop the vial. It rolls away from me, from Pen, clinking its way toward the altar. I pull the dagger out of my hand and throw it with the other one. It skids across the stone floor, and I see she’s not holding any more weapons. Not in her hands, anyway, and if she makes a move for any others on her, I’ll cut her down before she even has the chance to draw.

  With a hollow smile plastered on my face, I take a few more steps to her, my sword raised. Her eyes bounce between me and the vial on the ground. At the last second, she ducks below my swing and dives toward the vial.

  I drop my sword and grab her ankles, pulling her toward me, but she sinks her nails into the the ground, gripping the uneven edges of the old stones. She tries to claw her way from me, but I don’t let go. I will never let my sister go.

  The door of the chapel swings open, slamming into the wall with a crack.

  “Take your hands off her.” A slow, controlled order. “Unless you want me to cut them off.”

  I tighten my grip on Pen and look back at Michael. With my free hand, I lift my sword again, hold it toward him. The blade wavers a little in the air, but it’s balanced enough that I can wield it well, even from my awkward position on the floor. I will kill them both, even if it means I die tonight, too.

  None of us will leave this chapel alive if I don’t get what I want, if I don’t get her back.

  “I don’t take orders from you.”

  Pen

  MICHAEL’S SUDDEN APPEARANCE DISTRACTS AZAEL just enough that I’m able to gain purchase on the stones and pull myself forward. I scramble across to grab the vial, scoop it into my pocket, and pick up the daggers he threw away. After a quick succession of movements, I’m ready again. Safe again. I won’t let him get his hands around me a second time, because if he does, I don’t think I’ll get away.

  Azael freezes, his back stiffening with indignation as he turns to look at me and then back at Michael. “Are you going to kill me now?” he asks, smiling.

  My mouth goes dry. Now is our chance to stop him—to finish this once and for all. But killing Azael here, like this… It will get us nowhere. There are enough soldiers fighting for him who would easily take his place if he were to fall. There’s always someone else to step up into power, and who’s to say that they wouldn’t be worse than Azael?

  I hold my daggers out to Azael and look at Michael. “How many are injured?” I ask, nodding to the door.

  He looks behind him and shakes his head. “A lot.”

  “Dead?” I ask.

  He shakes his head again.

  Azael, laughing, gets to his feet. He looks pathetic and insane, his hair a mess and his eyes wild with anarchy. Everything about him screams savagery—the blood on his face, on his hands, in his hair—but he holds himself so still, so calm, even when he stumbles. He is Pandora’s box: madness, chaos, and death locked within. I don’t want to see what happens when that lid flips open.

  “Kill me!” His words are high and hysterical, a disturbing singsong to its pitch. With wide gestures, he sweeps his arms in front of him, beckoning Michael forth. He even bows a little at the waist like he’s about to join in on a dance. “Kill me! Isn’t that what you’re both here to do?” He swivels toward me. “My sister. Come on now. Bury that blade in my heart. Pull my head off my body and put it on a pike to serve as a warning to others.”

  I take a small step back, and he charges forward, but he drops his sword on the way. He grabs me by the collar of my shirt and shakes me. His face is so close to mine, and I see the void that’s opened up within him, his eyes empty. Completely blank.

  “Just do it!” he begs. “Kill me and end this!”

  My daggers are at his throat. It wouldn’t be hard to do. It would take just a second, and then he’d be nothing. He’d be gone, and I’d be bathed in his blood. I try to back away from him, but he tightens his grip on me.

  “Please,” I whisper just loud enough for him to hear.

  “Yes,” he breathes back, “please. Do it already.”

  He’s shaking now, and I’m starting too. All the adrenaline from our earlier fight leaves me in an instant, leaving me helpless and cold and in his grasp once again. But this time, it’s not for him to kill me, to stop me. He keeps urging me to do it, to kill him. He leans forward, pushes closer, and the daggers at his throat cut shallowly into his skin, drawing a line of blood. Using the heels of my hands, I push him back, and it jostles him back a few inches, but I don’t break free. His pendant slips out of his shirt from the movement. The chain is tangled with another, his onyx stone twining with a second, paler stone—an amethyst.

  He has my pendant.

  He found it where I had hung it from the tree, leaving the last of him behind. He kept it.

  Our eyes meet, and for the flash of a second, the rage is back. His lips tighten in a white line, like he’s furious I saw the necklace. With one hand, he tucks the pendants back under his collar, and when his hand returns to me, it’s rougher. I’ll have his fingertips bruised into my shoulders.

  “Do it,” he says, and the misery is back. All the self-loathing draining him of color.

  “Az—” It’s the first time since I’ve abandoned him that I haven’t used his full name. Our nicknames for one another seemed too personal, and I couldn’t hold him that close to me if I was betraying him. If I was fighting against him.

  There’s shouting from outside, and Michael searches out the noise, glancing out the door of the chapel.

  “Pen, we have to go. They’re calling for us to retreat.”

  An out. He’s giving me an out, telling me that the choice I make here—whatever it will be—is okay.

  Kill him. Let him live.

  Destroy the threat. Save my brother.

  Kala’s voice is high and piercing, orders being thrown in every direction. Ana’s rises under hers, a lower tune that matches her in a harmony of desperation.

  “Kill me,” Azael whispers again, his eyes narrow and boring into mine.

  It’s a plea, but I can’t do it. Not tonight. Not like this.

  Enough blood has been spilled tonight.

  I bring my dagger up and smash the hilt of it so hard into his face that I hear his cheek shatter. He slumps to the ground in front of me, unconscious. For a moment, I pause, consider stooping down and brushing his hair out of his eyes, but instead, I step over him, running to Michael. He gives me a questioning look—a look that asks if I’m sure, if this is enough for tonight or if we should end it now—but I don’t bother to acknowledge him. I’m too close to tears to talk.

  From my pocket, I lift up the vial with his soul, twist it in my hand, and nod. We have what we came for. We are not leaving empty-handed. The piece of Michael that was missing will be returned to him, and we will no longer pose a threat to New Genesis. For now, that is enough. It has to be, because I can’t consider the alternative. It would mean losing myself.

  Together, our bloody hands clasped between us, Michael and I charge back through the disaster of the courtyard and find the others grouped to
gether. They’re huddling together, the most injured at the center, protected by the rest. It’s a very, very small circle—half of us are missing.

  Only five of the volunteers are left—plus Ana and Kala. I’m glad to see that Eli survived. He saved Ana’s life, and I notice Kala handing him more weapons. She trusts him now. I think I do, too.

  “Go,” Kala says, pointing, “and don’t look back.”

  Everyone takes to the sky, but I can’t help but watch the ground as it shrinks under us. I look behind us as we go, counting the bodies of allies we are leaving behind. The redheaded angel who helped with finding the location, who drew us the map. A strong demon girl with fiery, pink hair. The body of the angel the bird-brother beheaded.

  I never bothered to learn any of their names, but they gave their lives for me. For Michael. For the future that we told them was possible—that we made them believe in.

  Guilt is a burden I will carry for the rest of my life, however long I still have. And I wasn’t even able to stop Azael. To protect everyone from my brother—the monster I let off his leash when I left him alone.

  Ana holds on to Kala. They’re huddled closely together as they fly on. Eli’s covered in lacerations, and the wound in his side is bleeding fast. We might not make it far before we have to land and stitch him up. If we don’t patch the hole under his ribs, he’ll, at best, slow us down or—more likely—drop in the ocean and drown. The other angels and demons amongst us—the very few that are left—don’t appear to be faring much better. They’re as pale and gray as the heavy clouds above us, their faces drawn in exhaustion. In defeat. Snow settles on them like ash, and no one bothers to try to brush it off.

  They need a ray of hope, a small offering of good news. To know that not everything is lost, that we at least accomplished something here tonight besides making away with their weapons.

  “I’ve got it,” I say to no one in particular.

  But everyone hears. They look over to me, and I take the crimson vial out of my pocket and hold it up for them to see.

  “We got it back from him. They won’t be able to use Michael against us.”

  “And Azael?” Kala asks.

  Michael’s eyes meet mine for a second before he looks away. “He slipped away,” he lies for me. It slips easily off his tongue.

  Ana nods, but she watches me closely. Like she doesn’t think it was quite that simple. But, for now, she doesn’t press me for further explanation. No challenges tonight; we’re all too relieved to be alive. I’m sure it’ll wear off and I’ll be duly interrogated.

  Softly, all she says is, “At least we had one win.”

  In our small group, we fly on toward the Eye of London on the horizon. We let the flurries of snow gather on our tiring wings and leave the fortress of demons and blood behind.

  Azael

  BLACKNESS CONSUMES ME, AND I think I’m home. This eternal night was made for me—stretching in every direction, swimming around me until I’m not sure if I’m inside the darkness or if the darkness is inside me. I can’t separate myself out from the nothingness, and for the first time, I feel content to be still. I could stay here forever.

  I’m not so lucky. Two pairs of footsteps are retreating, the noise rips my unconsciousness away, and I wake up in the cruel world of traitors and liars. Of my sister, who let me live but shattered the bones of my face to run away with an angel.

  It takes me a moment for everything to come rushing back to me. Her confession that she’d tried to kill herself to get away from me back in Hell. Lucifer would have killed me, she claimed, if she had not become more like me. Everything I’d thought… I had believed she was growing used to our new roles in Hell, but that was just another lie.

  Every day with me, she was faking it. Or was she? I remember the way she would sometimes look after killing someone. That flush that came to her cheeks, the new life shining in her eyes. It wasn’t all an act as she would like to believe. As she would have me think.

  She chose to let me live.

  While I lie on the cold stone of the chapel floor, the world spins. Snow drifts in through the open door of the chapel, and the past and the future coalesce, our destinies stretching out across oceans. We let each other survive this night; we will meet again. I’m not done with my sister, and she’s not done with me. Our choices tonight do not make us safe from one another. It just gives us more time.

  Not long after they’re gone, Proserpine charges through the door, her whip tangled and her short hair slicked back and wet from the melting snow. I shove myself off the floor, letting the scream of pain in my head escape through my mouth in orders.

  “Go after them!” I yell at her. I don’t know how much of a head start Pen and whoever is left of her group have, but we can’t give them any more time. She was so close—so close!—and I won’t let her simply disappear. “Send Rimmon and Raum.”

  “Rimmon is dead,” she says.

  Zepar steps up behind her. “Aym is dead, too.”

  I hurl curses at the walls of this wretched chapel. Our numbers were low enough as it was. Where the Hell are the reinforcements Lilith promised would arrive?

  “Send Raum after them,” I say. “Tell him to shift and to stay close. As close as he can manage to get. Follow them until they get to their basecamp.”

  Zepar calls out across the courtyard, and Raum appears in the doorway with the others. His face is bloody and chiseled with wrath. One look at him and I know he’s the one who should follow them. He won’t let them out of his sight—he won’t let those who killed his brother get away so easily.

  “Track them,” I say. “Check in when you know where they’re going and again when you get there.”

  “Through Jeremy?” he asks flatly.

  “We don’t have much choice.”

  Proserpine and Zepar regard each other for a moment, but Raum simply nods. He backs up into the night, and, swallowed by the darkness, takes to the sky as a large, vindictive raven.

  “We lost two soldiers tonight,” I say to Proserpine and Zepar.

  They don’t move from the doorway.

  “And our weapons,” Zepar adds.

  I’ve already seen the armory, but I ask anyway. “All of them?”

  But then I see Proserpine holding the slim, matte-black sword with the pale-green gem. Pen’s sword. At least the most valuable of our weapons was left behind. They didn’t know what they walked away from, or Pen would have stolen this faster than she tried to take back Michael’s soul. This is much more dangerous for me to have.

  “I did a sweep of the towers, and this was all that was left,” she says, holding the sword out. “It was in your room.”

  Where I left it; where Pen picked it up for just a minute. To consider it. I take the sword from her, my fingers tracing the carved handle. Then I strap in on my back. No, we didn’t lose everything.

  “They managed to take his soul,” Proserpine says. “Didn’t they?”

  At this, I smile a crazed, haphazard smile. One of vindictive victory. “They didn’t leave here nearly as triumphant as they believe. But we will let them think they won for as long as we can.”

  I lift a finger and disappear into the crypts, returning when I retrieve the cold, metallic vial. The ironwork spirals over the small, glass tube, and I extend it to them. Michael’s soul, writhing against the stopper, struggling for escape. Pen should have known that a soul as powerful as Michael’s would need the added magic dampener of iron—no regular vial would contain it for long. He’d melt right through the glass.

  Her mistake means my success though. Who’s the smarter of us now?

  “What did they take, then?” Proserpine asks, eyeing the vial.

  “Snow,” I tell her. “It’s probably melted by now, but I doubt they’ll realize their mistake until they’re back on the other side of whatever walls they’re hiding behind.”

  Zepar lets out a laugh. “And we’ll be right behind them.”

  “But our numbers have been depleted,�
�� Proserpine says. “It’s only you, me, Zepar, Raum, and…Jeremy. And I think it is safe to say that we cannot count on Jeremy for a thing—he was nowhere to be seen when the fighting broke out.”

  “Jeremy is a tool, not a weapon. We’ll be rid of him soon,” I say.

  “And that lowers our number even further,” Zepar says. “They outnumbered us here tonight, but we know there are more. Many more, by the sound of it. She has an army. And yes, we took down nearly half of them who arrived for this battle, but”—he taps his jagged blade on his leg—“there are only four of us.”

  “Reinforcements,” I say, picking my sword up, crossing it with Pen’s on my back, and pushing my way past them, out into the courtyard, “are on their way.”

  The snow continues to fall, a light dusting of flakes that is not the least disturbed by the violence it’s covering up. Bodies are thrown about the lawn. Five of theirs, two of ours.

  “Burn them,” I order Zepar and Proserpine. “I have a message to send to Lucifer.”

  “Tell Lilith we said hello,” Proserpine adds under her breath as I make my way back into the Tower.

  The comment sends the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.

  Lilith. Everyone is always mentioning Lilith because Lucifer’s cut himself out of our communication. He has more important things to do than confer with Jeremy or send out messages. A leader delegates such menial tasks to those below him—and when it comes to reaching us with news, the only one who can make it past the fog in Jeremy’s head is Lilith.

  Lucifer is busy preparing the rest of the plan—the part that comes after Michael’s and Pen’s deaths. What will he do with the remaining angels? Does he have any plans for the humans? Even I don’t know what steps he will take after this mission is complete, but he’s working with Gus who is finally making himself useful. The fates are more difficult to decipher now. It takes the two of them together, spending all day and night slaving over the text, to untangle the gnarled future.