The knight’s metal skirt was a canopy of tree leaves, and the legs were gnarled, ancient tree trunks. Each kneecap showed a life-like human face. One featured a beautiful young woman with thick, flowing hair and the other was a bearded old man with long, knotted, wild hair. The knight’s boots looked like a tangled knot of roots—with a single red ruby the size of my fist on the top of each foot.
His helmet resembled a snarling bear with wings at the temples that flared backwards into points. Through the open mouth, I saw only a veil of golden chain links, concealing the man behind. But on the center of the bear’s forehead was a silver circle containing a six-pointed star—perfectly symmetrical—with dots between each point.
The silver knight looked almost identical except for his helmet, which was a roaring lion. Instead of flaring wings at the temples, his head was surrounded by a mane of silver hair that looked light enough to shift in the wind or comb with my fingers even though it was also metal. The same star symbol marked his forehead, but in gold, and a similar curtain of silver chain links concealed the man’s face.
“You are earlier than we anticipated,” the golden knight said in a warm, soothing voice. He waved a hand towards the Silver Door they had been watching, and it evaporated like smoke in a breeze. Impressive.
I thumped the butt of my Silver Spear into the ground significantly, gauging their reactions. They didn’t flinch or tense. They were standing near the ledge of the rooftop and I wanted to get an idea of how high above ground level we were, so I began walking towards them, thumping my spear with each step in a steady, ominous beat that produced a faint throb of silver light in a circle around me.
They watched me thoughtfully, not looking the least bit concerned. They were either very brave, very stupid, or very powerful. I was pretty sure I knew which.
I kept a close eye on them as I reached the brick ledge and glanced down. We were about a hundred feet above a narrow, cobbled alley, and across the alley was the back of a decrepit church, slightly shorter than our own building. Once-elegant spires lined the peaked roof, but most of the survivors looked cracked and worn, on the verge of crashing down onto the passageway below. Almost the entire back of the church consisted of one vast stained-glass window.
But not just any window…it was practically a mural—a piece of art in glass form, utilizing every color of the rainbow, so vibrant it almost looked alive.
The church looked on the verge of collapsing in on itself, but that glass window looked as if it would last for eternity. Despite the abandoned city, there was obviously a light on in the church because the majority of the glass glowed enticingly, illuminated from within.
I realized that I was leaning over the edge, feeling drawn to that window, drawn to the story depicted in glass. A crucifix made of red-hot coals dominated the center of the window, held together only by a thorny vine wrapping around it in an upward spiral. A wreath of white roses was draped over the top like a fallen halo.
Or a funeral wreath on a tombstone.
Despite the flaming cross, neither the thorny vine nor the white rose wreath burned.
Just to the right of the center, a man stood staring down at the cross, his back to me so I couldn’t see his face.
Just to the left of the center, a small young girl with long pale hair mirrored his stance, much shorter than the adult, of course. The two of them held hands, and where their flesh met seemed too bright to directly look at—like staring into the sun.
At the base of the window were dozens of wicked claws, snarling beasts, and gnashing fangs. The Demons—despite their fangs and claws—were all beautiful. One even looked like Samael, and I noticed an empty black throne hidden to the right of the tangled mass of flesh.
At the peak of the window were Angels, and their faces were scarred, wounded ruins, their eyes pure white. Despite their flaws, they were perfect in every other way, and they were depicted in light, cold colors in the glass.
Each corner of the window was difficult to focus on, my eyes seeming to slip away each time I tried. All except the one in the bottom right corner, suggestively close to the empty black throne.
A man in black rode a black, winged unicorn—an alicorn. The beast’s eyes glowed with all the colors of the rainbow, somehow cycling through them one-by-one. Great skeletal wings arced over the man’s back, sprouting long black feathers like those on a peacock but with red orbs at the tips. Unlike a typical feathered wing, there were maybe a dozen feathers altogether, making the wings look impractical and dysfunctional. The eyes of the man’s mask glowed such a bright, golden color that I couldn’t quite make out the details of the mask itself.
He gripped a coiled, white chain, and a sinister, curved, black blade—looking like it had been taken from a spear-sword—hung from the end of the chain.
I tried again to study the other three corners of the glass window, but could only confirm that they were also masked, humanoid silhouettes riding four-legged beasts. Out of the corner of my eye, the top left figure seemed to flare brighter for a fraction of a second, but when I tried directly focusing on it, I still couldn’t pick out any details—seeing only a blurred silhouette. Perhaps the light within the church didn’t reach the corners like it did the rest of the window.
I finally leaned back from the ledge, blinking a few times since they felt gritty from scrutinizing the window too closely. The two knights hadn’t moved but I abruptly realized I had focused so intently on the window that they easily could have killed me had they wanted.
“Where is my Demon?” I demanded. I’d come here to kill Samael, not to stare at windows or make new friends. I’d seen this rooftop—or one almost identical to it—in the bear’s vision, and it had shown me battling Samael. He was supposed to be here. Why else would my Door have taken me here?
A sudden suspicion settled over my shoulders, and I realized I was growling openly. At the knights. With a snap of my fingers, I cast a precise blast of air to knock off their helmets, expecting to find Samael hiding beneath like a bug under a rock. Their helmets evaporated like smoke before striking the rooftop. I already had a second braid of power prepared—a blast so powerful it could level this entire city if I wanted—to rip his face from his shoulders. But my magic sputtered and died as I saw…
Two very surprised, non-demonic faces stared back at me. I knew my own look mirrored theirs. Primarily because the silver knight had the head of a gorgeous white lion. And it seemed obvious that he hadn’t been padding his armor. His fur looked as soft as velvet, and his eyes were the color of glaciers—a blue so cold that I imagined a frigid wind hitting my cheeks.
“That was quite rude,” he growled unhappily.
“I’m sure she meant it as a polite gesture,” the other knight said in a meaningful tone. He was a handsome older man—one of those who seemed to only grow more beautiful with age—and had shoulder-length white hair and a matching, neatly-trimmed white beard. His green eyes sparkled like fresh-cut grass, and his skin was tanned like he either spent every moment of every day outdoors or he had some spice in his veins.
Speaking of veins, his were black, fanning across his face like the roots of a plant. He didn’t seem sickly or harmed by it, though. The man just had black veins.
Maybe he had experimented with the wrong Angelic runes on his gauntlets one day.
All that I really cared about was that neither of them was Samael. You would think this would be a relief. That glancing under the bed and not finding a monster was a good thing.
But you would be wrong.
I ground my teeth together. “Where. Is. My. Demon?” I demanded in a clipped tone, squeezing the haft of my Spear tightly, ready to pummel the answer out of them—knocking out tooth by tooth, ripping off fingernail by fingernail, and breaking bone by bone…
As a warm-up to what I was going to do to Samael when I found him.
Chapter 38
They studied me with infinite patience in their eyes, unaffected by my obvious fury. My patience, on the
other hand, was not infinite. In fact, it was so finite that it barely existed.
All I really had left in me was a single drop of tolerance.
And that little sucker had just evaporated. It was time to show them just how powerful I—
“You’ve forgotten much, haven’t you, my child?” the older man said gently. “In your accumulation of power.” I blinked at him, caught off guard by his body language, his calm demeanor, and the surprising depth to his question. It earned him a few more minutes of life.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” I said drily. “Oh, that’s right. Sticks and stones can’t hurt me anymore either. My accumulation of power has made me invincible.”
The man smirked. “We’ll come back to that in a few moments.”
I frowned at the cryptic comment. “Who are you?” I finally asked, feeling that strange sense of familiarity again as I looked into his eyes. I got the sense that he was the boss of the two.
“Just an old man who likes to learn. You can call me Sol.”
“I didn’t ask what I could call you. I asked who you are.”
He smiled, the motion seeming to make his eyes twinkle. “Solomon,” he admitted with an easy shrug.
It didn’t ring a bell, so I turned to the lion knight. “What about you, pussycat?”
He didn’t take offense, but he looked amused by my phrasing. “Richard,” he finally shrugged.
His answer made the corners of my mouth twitch as if some inner part of me had heard a good joke, but try as I might, I couldn’t find anything funny about the name.
Sol cleared his throat, and I realized I was glaring at Richard, still wondering why I had wanted to smile at his name. “What would bring the most joy in your life? Pretend I am a genie, and that I can grant you one wish.”
That snapped me out of my reverie. “I want Samael sobbing and bleeding out on my boots.”
Solomon glanced at my boots and nodded appreciatively. “Darling, those are very fancy boots. Are you certain you want to get Demon blood on them? They do look to be one-of-a-kind, my Dear.”
I felt my shoulders twitch uncomfortably, but I didn’t know why. I masked my reaction by glancing down at my boots for a moment. I couldn’t recall where I had gotten them, but they were rather nice. “Maybe not on them,” I admitted. “Just a figure of speech, I guess.”
He nodded his approval, not fazed in the slightest about the topic of Demon blood. “Wise choice. The final location of Samael’s gore aside, spilling his blood will make you happy?”
I fought down my instinctive purr of triumph. “You have no idea.”
“Then you must be very happy right now,” he mused, scratching at his beard with a golden finger. The lion watched us intently, his massive head shifting from one to the other as we conversed. Although I could tell he was incredibly powerful and dangerous, I just wanted to pet that velvety fur and hear him purr. Maybe offer him a tummy rub.
Instead, I squinted at Solomon suspiciously. “I haven’t killed him yet. Remember?”
He smiled faintly. “But I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have accumulated enough power to achieve that which you said would bring the most joy to your life. It wouldn’t necessarily be easy, but the outcome is almost certainly in your favor. Shouldn’t that make you happy? To be on the cusp of your life’s defining moment?” he asked, smiling excitedly. “What if I told you that I could take you to him right now?”
I practically salivated. “That would make me deliriously happy.”
He smiled, holding up a gauntlet as if to beg just a bit of patience on my part. I nodded, deciding he had earned it. If he was telling the truth, of course. “So, right now, you are deliriously happy. Entirely content. You have essentially achieved your life’s ultimate purpose.”
I hesitated as his specific phrasing. “More or less.”
“I am so happy to hear that,” he said, even his eyes seeming to smile at my achievement. “What’s next, then? You know, afterwards.” He noticed the frozen smile on my face and shrugged. “If your life’s joy is dependent on his death, then you have no reason to exist after you achieve your goal, correct? Theoretically speaking, of course.”
I frowned, not having an argument to such a question. I hadn’t even considered it, honestly. I shrugged piously, folding my arms. “Where is my Door?”
He nodded politely. “I must admit that I wasn’t actually pretending when I said I could grant you a wish.” He held up a finger, stalling me as I opened my mouth to make my wish. “Patience is a virtue. The price of my gift is that you have to listen to me ramble a little bit. Old man privilege.”
Richard snorted. “He uses that one often. But it’s easier to just let him do it,” he told me in a rumbling purr.
Solomon shot Richard a stern look. “Quiet, you.” The lion rolled his eyes and folded his arms—again, with no sound of metal on metal. Solomon turned back to me. “As an added bonus, since you’ve been exceedingly ladylike so far, I’ll include another benefit to letting me prattle on. Without my aid, it would take you many months and many Doors to find Samael. My Door is instantaneous.”
I sighed in defeat. “Fine. Go ahead, Solomon.” I knew the Doors were fickle things, and he was likely telling the truth. For some odd reason, I realized I had specifically angled the toes of my boots to face each of them separately, like a subconscious tic, expecting something.
But nothing happened.
When I looked over at Richard, he was smiling at me. He gave me a thumbs up, of all things.
Then Solomon began to speak, and I turned to listen. “We are not here by coincidence. You arrived on your own rather than through the Door we anticipated,” he said, arching an eyebrow to let me know that this was an impressive thing that I had done.
I dipped my head at the compliment but didn’t speak, figuring the sooner he finished this little talk, the sooner I could be on my way.
“I am here to offer you a choice. You must decide which leads to your happiness. There is no wrong answer, necessarily, but there are consequences to either option. Each choice will give you some measure of joy, and some degree of pain and suffering. So, heed my words and think twice before answering. I will not attempt to sway your decision, but I will not allow you to choose until I am satisfied you understand the gravity of the situation,” he warned.
I nodded, my curiosity piqued.
He lifted a hand in a casual gesture and a Silver Door shimmered into existence a dozen paces away. “Samael waits beyond this Door. His death at your hands is all but guaranteed. Your vengeance will be complete. You will have access to the Doors for the rest of your life, able to find whatever you wish, wandering the worlds for power.”
He waited, letting me absorb that. My blood boiled hungrily, and I had to force myself not to make a run for it, even though I knew he would make it disappear if I tried to break his rules.
He nodded his approval, silently applauding my temperance. “Or, that one,” he said, pointing towards the church window. I saw no Door, just the ledge of the roof between us.
I turned back to Solomon. “Care to elaborate on that one?” I asked, repeating his description. “Because right now, it’s rather one-sided.”
Solomon nodded, indicating the church. “This one leads to memory and thought. You will remember who you were, and who you are. It will also give you the key to life, but you’ll forget it the instant you comprehend it, so we will put that bonus on a shelf for later,” he admitted with a tired shrug.
“Why even mention it, then?”
“Just being transparent,” he said with a shrug. “I should mention that with your memory and thought intact—remembering who you were—this option would grant you an inner power, one that cannot be as easily taken away as your current magical artifacts.”
“Maybe who I am isn’t that special. I didn’t seem to care about that when I came here, or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation, right?”
So
lomon smirked mischievously. “And do you remember coming here? What you felt? What you sought? Before you confronted Samael, what were you and Cain doing? Because I can tell you one thing—it wasn’t hunting down Samael. That was just an unfortunate coincidence.”
I frowned uncomfortably. I…had no idea, as a matter of fact. What had we been doing?
“If you go through this Door,” he said, pointing at it, “you will have the opportunity to hunt down many Demons in the future. Perhaps even Samael’s Lord.”
“Going through this one will grant you vengeance. You will succeed in killing Samael. After, you will likely feel alone, lost, without a purpose other than the desperate need to accumulate more power as you search for a new purpose to your life. You will find power and will have your vengeance against Samael. But only against Samael.”
I studied him in silence for a few moments, thinking. “But if I had power, I would have the tools to go after all the Demons later,” I argued. “Right?”
“Sure,” Solomon admitted easily. “If you remembered to do so…” I cocked my head, not following. “Name one other Demon,” he challenged. “One not inside your ring. I’ll wait.”
I gasped, frowning at the Silver ring on my finger. It did have Demons inside. I hadn’t cared to study it too closely, only using it for its ability to open Doors. What would have happened had I worn it while fighting Samael? I quickly pocketed the ring, not wanting to wear it any longer.
It also made me concerned about my other jewelry. What dangers lurked with their use that I had overlooked in my quest for vengeance. I…wasn’t sure if I had asked anyone.
Solomon nodded. “Power without knowledge is dangerous. To others and to yourself. How about this…” he asked. “Do you remember anyone from your childhood? From your teens? From a few years ago? What is your favorite juice-box? Animal? Color? Best friend? Who was your first kiss? Who was your last kiss?” He leaned forward. “I’ve got an even simpler one…Tell. Me. Your. Father’s name. I’ll accept any of the three possible answers as correct.”
Feathers and Fire Series Box Set 2 Page 51