“Ah. Yes.” Yulian puffed on his pipe, sending a waft of fragrant tobacco into the air. “The final spell must be performed on the night of the full moon. Which means we only have three days to gather the materials. Otherwise, we shall have to wait another month for the full moon.”
Dom shrugged. “I suggest we wait. Logistically, it makes more sense to take our time and do everything right. Belias has ruled here fifty years. What’s another month?”
“We can’t wait.” My tone came out sharper than I intended. I hadn’t even realized the words were there, poised on the tip of my tongue as she spoke.
Yulian tilted his head and appraised me. “While I’m inclined to wish for a speedy execution of the demon queen, I believe my daughter has a point. Rushing into this could be detrimental to our success.”
I shook my head hard and a little too long, so much that I probably looked like I’d lost my mind. I conjured an image of Liliya’s innocent face, and it was enough to put a note of urgency in my voice. “Belias took a little girl. There’s a small chance we can save her, but not if we wait a month.”
“A little girl?” Dom said sharply.
I’d given Yulian a brief on Liliya’s abduction already in my hospital room. He obviously hadn’t had the time to discuss our conversation with Dom. So I gave her a quick synopsis on Liliya, and why I believed there was still a chance to save the kid. By the end of my monologue, Dom’s jaw had hardened to steel.
She turned a flinty gaze on her father. “We have three days. Let’s do this.”
Yulian nodded once, though his face drooped with exhaustion. “I suggest you both get some rest. We’ll leave at nightfall.”
Yulian retired to his room, leaving me facing Dom in the firelight. Her gaze remained on the flames as she worried at her bottom lip.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I said.
Dom bared her teeth. “I’m not that cheap.”
Something about the show of fierceness and feralness sent a warm thrill through me. She really looked good in those leather pants, as long as I studiously ignored the lethal weapons on her feet.
Before I could think up a witty comeback, Dom went on. “I’m not comfortable being so close to the watchtower. I get the reasons—we’ll find our bone there; we’ll have an easy, central base to gather supplies… But it’s just so close to her.”
“Belias isn’t all-knowing,” I offered. “The cathedral has been empty for fifty years. Demons can’t step onto that consecrated soil.”
“Fifty years is a long time for consecrated soil to remain fallow. I doubt St. Basil’s will give us much protection from Belias or her demons. Her nymphs will sense us.”
“Yulian will make certain they can’t. I’m sure of it.”
Dom remained silent, her gaze never shifting from the flames.
When she had burst from the crowd at the Square, her long black hair flying and her high-heeled boots moving with surety, she’d looked amazing. Like a hero, completely uninterested in the dangerous possibilities of her mission.
But sitting here in front of the fire in her home, confronted by what lay ahead, she looked young. Scared. And I didn’t know her well enough to understand what had changed.
“Did his eyes change?” I asked, veering the subject in a new direction. I motioned to my own eyes. “They seemed cloudy or something.”
“Hmm?” Dom said distractedly. She glanced up at me as if she’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, um, it’s magic. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Some of the highest magics, the most arcane, must take something in return. Every time he communes with the ancestors, it takes something from his body. It isn’t a skill to be done on a whim or taken lightly.” She caught my eye. “He was in there a while today.”
“Will he get that back?”
“No. What he loses is gone forever.”
“Are there others who can commune for him?” I asked, horrified at the idea of Yulian losing so much.
“My father is one of the last elder witches with the knowledge and ability to commune with the ancestors.”
A sharp edge in her voice knifed through me. She blamed me, plain and simple. Dom likely thought her father an idiot for giving up some of his sight for the cipher.
But I recognized the gesture for so much more than that. His sacrifice wasn’t for the Circle; his sacrifice was for Catie and Gretchen.
To fix the world that destroyed them.
“You should rest,” Dom echoed her father’s parting words. She stood and stretched, her shirt lifting to expose a thin, strong line of abdomen. She caught me staring with a smirk. “Good night, Gadreel.”
She whirled on a single boot heel and disappeared into the dark hallway.
In my room, I shed my boots and shirt and stood before the small mirror nailed into the armoire. The warped glass reflected a Gadreel I didn’t recognize. I looked gaunt, my skin ashen, the hollows beneath my eyes darker than natural. I needed to shave the unruly fuzz from my face and head.
And my chest… Even the tiny, wavy looking glass couldn’t shy away from that.
The pain felt distant, as if I’d imagined it entirely when I left Zia’s home. But confronted with the physical reminder of the envy curse, I couldn’t ignore it.
A raw, angry mauve bruise spread like a spiderweb over my heart.
The envy curse had finally begun to manifest. All those years I had fought it off, but here it was. Physical proof it has taken up residence inside me.
And the envy curse was always fatal.
14
Snow didn’t fall on the Square, for once, but the frigid, icy air clung to our skin as we hurried through the shadows toward the hulking form of St. Basil’s Cathedral.
From a distance, the exceptional cathedral seemed nothing more than an odd black shape against inky clouds, like a void of space in the sky. The shape shifted ever closer as we stole through empty streets. Pointed turrets coalesced from the clouds, reflecting the dull glow of the watchtower.
My heart pounded with a mixture of fear and anticipation. I hadn’t set foot on sanctified ground since Belias took over. The closest I’d come to God had been my recent rendezvous with Raphael and his glowy, divinity-saturated aura that I loathed so much.
In a sense, I felt as if I were returning home after a long vacation—or a long banishment. My pilgrimage had begun. I couldn’t return to heaven—but I could return to church.
Dom, having swapped personalities from chastised-daughter to woman-in-charge, led us toward the cathedral. She kept our trio to the shadows of the sleeping buildings, and our footsteps muffled on the snow-covered ground by Yulian’s magic.
I had come to a begrudging admiration of magic, despite it being the reason we were in this mess to begin with. I touched the amulet that hung around my neck—a human amulet. Yulian had no test subjects for ex-angels, since angels—fallen or not—weren’t exactly welcome in the underground. So while he had no data to suggest the amulet could do anything for me, he had forced it on me anyway.
I hadn’t the heart to tell him the curse had already come to take its due. His amulet couldn’t save me from my own heart.
As we stepped into the shadow of the cathedral, I drew in a slow breath. The once-magnificent building soared above us, a bonfire made living, though the brilliant colors had long since dulled to nothing but shades of gray. One of the curved towers had collapsed over time. The pointed roof had fallen in on itself, leaving the building asymmetrical. I hated to think how much inside had been destroyed by the constant precipitation and freezing temperatures.
Dom took a route around the back, putting the cathedral between us and the watchtower where Belias and her demons resided. We hunkered down in the overgrown weeds by a boarded-up back entrance.
“How are we getting in?” I asked.
“Think you can lift me?” Dom pointed to a window ten feet above us that hadn’t been broken and boarded.
“Sure, but I don’t think those windows are meant to
open.”
“I’m going to break it, you idiot.”
I stared at her, appalled. “You can’t break a window in a house of God.”
Dom rolled her eyes. “A demon is ruling our city, and people are burning from the inside out with the envy curse. God isn’t here anymore.”
I knew she was right. I knew it with the kind of certainty that came from living in a shitty reality. But still, the reminder of His absence stung as if she’d kicked me in the head. Again.
“Yeah. It’s just a window.” I cupped my hands and squatted to take her weight.
Dom placed a snow-crusted boot in my gloves and boosted herself. One long leg swung up to my shoulder, and I braced myself against the wall as she crouched on my shoulders.
Her scent surrounded me: eucalyptus, fresh and bracing. I tried not to think of the fact my head was cupped between her knees. Breaking into a cathedral wasn’t exactly the right time for lustful thoughts.
Or shit. Maybe it was.
Kindly keeping the heels of her boots off my body, Dom inched up the wall until she stood on my shoulders. She nodded down at Yulian, who lifted and clapped his hands once—silently—and then Dom rammed an elbow through the window.
Yulian’s spell muffled the sound almost completely, though the sensory memory of glass breaking echoed in my ears. Dom’s weight disappeared from my shoulders as she slithered through the window.
Yulian motioned for me to follow him. We stuck close to the shadows beneath the cathedral, making the long trek to the front of the massive building.
I imagined eyes on us from across the Square as we ascended the crumbling steps to the main entrance. If spotted, we would only have a few minutes before the nymphs would arrive and murder us, then drag our carcasses to Belias so she could bathe in our blood. Dom had a point; what if St. Basil’s had lain fallow so long it was no longer sanctified ground?
If that were truly the case, we would have nowhere to hide.
Dom waited for us at the open door, her shrewd gaze scanning the empty Square and the monstrosity of the watchtower beyond it. Without a word, Yulian slipped past her into the darkness. I glanced over my shoulder to reassure myself the nymphs weren’t coming anywhere but in my imagination, then followed.
Yulian muffled the sound of the door closing with a flick of his fingers. When the heavy wood latched into place with nary a sound, I was reminded of Zia’s floating kettle and “parlor tricks.” Yulian must have been an insanely powerful witch to manipulate his surroundings so well.
Dom twisted the bolt into place, locking us in.
Silence rang loud in my ears. I ventured into the interior, my breath and my lonely footsteps the only sounds.
The place felt hollow and haunted. From before the rift, I remembered vividly painted walls, resplendent in their artistry. But without the constant upkeep needed by human hands, the painted walls were now faded and barely recognizable. Glass cases that had once held important artifacts of the country’s history were broken and empty. My footsteps kicked up decades of dust and debris, memories of the people who had loved and worshipped within these walls. As many had died because of the curse as had passed through these doors.
Yulian’s voice startled me from my macabre thoughts. “Such a shame.”
I agreed entirely—it was a shame. But words couldn’t change the sad reality. Instead, I said, “At least it’s enclosed. We’ll be warm while we’re here.”
Dom joined us, brushing dust from her hands. All trace of her anxiety had faded now that we were safely inside. She smiled, the thrill of adventure alighting in her crystal eyes. “So. Where’s this crypt?”
St. Vasily had been removed from his resting place many, many years before the rift curse, when the world went bad but before the demons flooded our cities.
I rather liked the tale of Basil the Fool, the eccentric man who roamed the city naked, draped in chains, and stealing to help those in need. Vasily could see through the greed and narcissism in man, and expose a person using charity for their own selfish needs. Prophetic and crazy as a loon, yeah—but Vasily could also see through bullshit. I liked the idea of that.
Though his remains were long gone, both Yulian and myself remembered where the venerated saint had lain.
The rotunda was empty of everything it had once contained. Now only the faded painted walls and original stone floor remained. I couldn’t help but wonder where everything had ended up after the place was looted. I had a suspicion Belias sat atop a mountain of stolen heirlooms of the state.
Dom jammed her torch into a crack in the wall, illuminating the room. “There’s nothing here.”
“Just because you cannot see something does not mean it isn’t there, my child.” Yulian clapped his hands and gently held them out palms down over the floor. Dust and dirt swirled at his behest, clearing a round spot on the ground.
I took a breath and stepped on the exposed stone, sure nothing would happen. Not after all these years. But the interlocking stones ground apart, exposing a staircase that led beneath the cathedral into deep, forbidding darkness.
“Are you telling me the government before Belias didn’t know about this?” Dom asked, her eyes so wide the whites glowed in the torchlight.
To be honest, I was shocked it had opened as easily as it had. I found it nothing short of a miracle that the crypt had remained unfound after all these years. But if only one thing could go right on this mission, finding the bones of a holy man would be best.
Except maybe getting in and out of the watchtower alive.
“Ah, but just because something is there doesn’t mean people can see it,” Yulian added, a smile on his lips. He snapped his fingers, calling up a flame on his thumb, and started to descend.
I glanced at Dom. “Is he always so cryptic?”
She jerked her torch from the crack in the wall. “Yes. Always.”
Structural damage in the roof of this particular tower had created a background whoosh of wind. When the darkness of the staircase enveloped me, all natural sound vanished, leaving me with only the shuffle of our boots and Dom’s soft breathing behind me.
The farther we descended, the drier and mustier the air became. Yulian was a pinprick of light far ahead of us, a melodic hum trailing behind him. I wasn’t sure if the unfamiliar tune was meant to calm himself or to calm us, but it worked for me.
Death didn’t frighten me or disgust me. Not in the way it did most. But intruding on this sacred space of eternal rest bothered me. I felt as if we were walking in on a private moment, stepping into a world we didn’t belong. The crypt embraced me, growing weightier with every step. The spirits beneath undulated with restless excitement. An interesting by-product of being a fallen angel—this sixth sense for spirits.
“Place is creepy as hell,” Dom breathed, ducking beneath a thick bundle of ragged cobwebs.
Cold, disembodied fingers caressed my neck, and I shivered. “You don’t even know.”
Dom eyed me. “What do you mean?”
“Just don’t venture far.”
“Now who’s being cryptic?”
I shrugged. “Either listen to me or don’t. I’m not responsible for what they do.”
Dom shuddered and sidled closer, her sleeve brushing mine. “They?”
“Don’t intrude on their space, and they won’t intrude on yours,” I assured her, though I wasn’t entirely sure that held true. More of an optimistic hope.
Yulian waited quietly at the base of the staircase, an amusing figure with his flaming thumbs-up. “It’s been a good many long years since I’ve been here. A friend is buried in these catacombs. A priest. That’s how I came to know this place existed.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said automatically, and then cringed at the cliché. We were programmed to say those words, to offer our condolences—so much so that the words often felt hollow and disjointed. Yet we still speak them.
I did feel sorry for Yulian to have lost a friend, but I was too distracted by th
e distant sensation of spirits reaching through the veil, desperate to catch my attention. I felt like a prize on display. Their attention weighed heavy on my mind.
Dom held the torch up to Yulian’s face as if she were interrogating him. “You were friends with a priest? Since when?”
Yulian chuckled and gently pushed the torch away, removing the spotlight from his craggy, bearded face. “I had a life before you, girl.”
“Lies.” Dom smiled affectionately.
Yulian returned her smile, ever the indulgent father. “Drake was a dear friend, and a great man of faith. If I can locate his tomb after all these years, I feel that he’d be honored to join our cause.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, his words releasing some of my discomfort. “I like that idea better than desecrating a stranger’s tomb.”
“Indeed.” Yulian inclined his head sagely, and then set off down the pitch-black hall.
Dom stepped past me, torch held aloft. “We’re not desecrating. We’re saving the world.” She winked and skipped after her father.
I had no other choice but to follow on our mission to violate a dead man.
Despite the spirits swirling around me, seeking my counsel, little stood out as odd down here. The halls were empty and surprisingly clean of detritus. Every few feet, we passed an arch in the wall on either side where a stone sarcophagus lay. Many weren’t in use, their lids propped open, nothing but spiders inside. But some were covered, a good indication someone inhabited the darkness within.
“I rather like cemeteries,” Dom said after a time. “Sunlight and air and places to run away. Much better than this.”
I laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re scared. You went up against slave traders and nymphs to save me.”
“Technically, the nymphs never reached us. If they had, we’d be dead.” Her grin flashed white in the torchlight.
She wasn’t wrong.
“You took down two strong men, one of them holding a gun.”
Dom flipped her hair theatrically. “You can praise me if you want.”
The Shadows and Sorcery Collection Page 27