by Cate Corvin
It was like she’d managed to vanish off the face of Hell in the span of an hour. Twilight was already descending in the sky, filling the Nightside with the tones of blue and violet that deepened the shadows to an inky black.
I forced myself to stop and take a breath, instead of getting worked up over nothing. Vyra was independent; she often took care of business herself without a word to anyone else.
I had just turned around to head back to the front of the arena when I saw it. It was white, standing out against the darkness of the ground like a beam of moonlight.
I slowly approached, my stomach sinking. In the pile of ashes I’d created of Satan’s last puppet-body was a scrap of cloth, and it was all too obvious who it belonged to.
I knelt and picked it up, brushing off the ash to reveal the glitter of the white cloth. The drop of blood that stained a ragged corner of it crimson.
Vyra was the only one who could’ve dropped this.
“Please let this be a coincidence.” I clutched the scrap in my hand as I slowly stood up. “It’s just from training. She dropped it when she was flying. Nothing to get upset about at all.”
The shadows beneath my window shifted, and I gripped the scrap so tightly my nails threatened to draw blood from my own hand.
“I told you,” Satan said in a mockery of sadness. “All of this could have been avoided.”
He’d made a new body dripping with insects. It unfurled from the shadows, arms and legs bending in impossible ways as he climbed out of the dirt. Sickness and hot anger rose in me as he straightened to his full height, adjusting his stovepipe hat and sweeping dirt off his shoulders.
It wasn’t a dream. I was wide awake, and no one heard him, saw him, or smelled his decaying stench.
He was shielded from all eyes but mine.
“Where is she?” I asked. The scrap of bloody fabric seemed to burn in my hand. My magic coursed through me with fiery thorns of rage, but I held it in check.
He had her. He’d threatened to take what I loved, and I’d been dumb enough to think we were untouchable for now.
If I was going to get answers, I needed his puppet whole and able to talk.
He smiled, his red lips wet like he’d just fed on something living. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the bits of dirt still clinging to the wetness.
“She’s where she belongs.” He stepped out of the churned earth and kicked one of his hooves, dislodging several carrion beetles and sending them flying. “The tithe was broken, and now she’s in her rightful place.”
“What tithe? What do you mean?” I refused to back up. If he got any closer, I’d bind him with my thorns.
Satan looked at me with those goat-like pupils and cocked his head, like he didn’t understand the question. “The tithe of her body. The other, the Watcher… he traded his soul for her body, but his soul is now… whole.” He touched his chest, frowning. “I wasn’t given what I was owed. He broke his word. I only took what belonged to me.”
A cold sweat broke out all over my body.
Azazel had traded a portion of his soul in exchange for Vyra’s freedom. By marking me and sharing in my own soul, he’d filled the void in his own.
Like all deals with the devil, there’d clearly been a loophole. Her freedom had been conditional on Azazel’s soul remaining Satan’s, and Satan’s alone.
“You motherfucker,” I breathed. “You took her because he repaired his soul?”
Satan took another step, his body tilting precariously to the side, but he straightened up like a puppet on strings. “The contract was clear. The Watcher’s soul must be apportioned to myself. He has reneged on his end of the tithe.”
Fury bubbled up inside me, and I flung out a hand, sending my magic shooting out in ropes to wrap around him. I tightened them, growing thorns that dug deep into his false body and held him in place.
“You’re going to bring her back right now,” I snarled, sending dark vines creeping around his throat. “She’s not yours.”
I wanted to squeeze them tight and rip him apart from the inside with my thorns. Vyra was in the awful palace I’d seen in my dream-vision, trapped in a tower surrounded by bones and the screams of the damned.
She was right where she’d always feared she’d end up, and it was my fault for lowering my guard. I hadn’t done my utmost to protect her the way I should have.
Satan laughed, the sound growing strangled as the vines tightened. “Kill this body if you want. She belongs to me. Drink in the suffering, fallen one. You brought this on your own head.”
Rage pounded in my temples, filling my chest with bitter sickness. A fist was squeezing my heart in a vise. “Laugh while you can. We’re going to kill you and bring her back. If God can die, you can die.”
A forked tongue flickered out of his mouth, wiping across his cheek and catching a drop of blood.
“God was a defenseless lamb. I have eyes everywhere.” He blinked, and several more eyes opened on his face, blinking from his cheeks, forehead, and one beside his ear that grotesquely stared in another direction. “Everywhere. I know you steal my loyal subjects and plot my downfall. This is your downfall: live with the suffering you’ve caused.”
“Bring her back!” I snarled, but he smiled, the corners of his mouth tugging at his extra eyes.
“When she screams, I will sing your names so she knows who was responsible for this. Her false friend, her unloving brother.”
His grin split wider and one of the eyes began weeping tears as a cold wind breezed through the empty garden.
Shadows rose in a column, glittering with dark stars. Azazel’s form was nothing but smoke and electricity, towering twelve feet over us. Inhuman eyes glared down at the puppet-body.
“Where is my sister?” His voice was full of the electric current that sounded more like buzzing than an actual voice. A prickle of fear that had nothing to do with Satan crept down my spine as Azazel’s monstrous form crept closer, leaning over the captive devil.
Satan sucked his lower lip into his mouth and bit down, his eyes rolling. “At my feast, tithe-breaker.”
He was utterly insane, but Azazel’s mouth split into a wide maw full of teeth, stretching from ear to ear. My heart pounded in my throat while I was faced with this incomprehensible version of him.
“I will come for her.” His words crackled, distorted almost beyond comprehension. “Your heart will be my feast.”
Azazel opened his mouth wide, unhinging enough to swallow a man whole. The column of shadows surrounded the puppet-body and he lurched downwards, his maw engulfing Satan’s entire upper body and snapping shut.
My magic flickered and died out. I was frozen in place as Satan’s legs collapsed and the monster that I called a mate swallowed the rest of him whole.
Ragged wisps of smoke surrounded me in a tornado and Azazel drew closer, gliding over the ground. Spots of white fire burned in his amorphous skull, rendering him completely inhuman.
I understood a little of what he’d traded, then. If this was horrifying, I couldn’t imagine what he’d seen when he’d opened gates to other worlds.
“He will not take you,” he said. There was nothing left of Azazel in his voice, either. Whatever he was now, it was something beyond anything I’d imagined. His head ducked downwards, only a foot from mine, sparks prickling my skin as his fangs flashed. “I will consume him. I will eat him alive and screaming. I will cast him into an endless void.”
His shadows swallowed me whole.
27
Melisande
The shadows ripped at me, so thick and dark I was completely blind as my feet left the ground.
I felt like I was in an abyss, one that had eaten me alive, and there was no way out. I couldn’t see my hands in front of my face, couldn’t spread my wings, could barely breathe as the scent of ozone filled the air.
Stars flashed here and there, but the shadows were too dense, consuming them as soon as the stars dared to shine. I opened my mouth to scream for him to sto
p, but the tornado around me was ripping the air from my lungs, and the electric currents bit my skin.
I was sure he’d lost himself and I was about to go down with him when light pierced the darkness. The shadows released me onto solid ground, but with my head still spinning from the dizzying currents, I stumbled and almost fell over.
Shadows caught me, pulling me upright again. I blinked at the light that suddenly seemed so harsh after pure pitch darkness.
We were in Blackchapel. The cathedral was empty of all other life, but the milky gray light was almost painful on the eyes now.
“Azazel…” I whispered, but the titanic tornado of shadows wasn’t listening.
Clawed hands extended from his depths, dripping with liquid darkness. He held them up, the smell of ozone growing so strong it was acrid, and clenched them.
My ears popped painfully as time and space was displaced. Orbs of shadow formed from pinpricks out of thin air, tiny black holes growing and expanding, warping the reality of the room- until they burst, and multiple people appeared, each of them in a position like they’d been transplanted right in the middle of doing something else.
Tascius looked like he was sitting in an invisible chair for a single second before falling to the floor. Belial was holding an outstretched dagger that clattered from his fingertips to the floor. Lucifer appeared in front of me, his arms crossed over his chest, mouth open like he’d been talking.
“Assign some Grigori handlers to Adr- what the fuck have I said about ripping us through time rifts unannounced, Azazel?” Lucifer snapped, changing his words in mid-sentence, but as soon as he saw the thing that had been Azazel, his entire demeanor changed.
He whipped around, eyes wild until they landed on me.
“Fucking Hell, I thought he’d taken you,” he said, his voice thick with relief, but I straightened up, unable to keep the dread off my face.
“He took Vyra.” I took a deep breath and clenched my trembling fists. “He said Azazel had broken their tithe by bonding to me and filling the void in his soul.”
The silence that descended was only broken by the hissing rasp of Azazel’s shadows. He inclined his head, looking at Lucifer with those flaming eyes.
“When?” Lucifer asked. He stepped closer to me, his shoulders taut, but instead of grabbing me he was making a visible effort to hold himself back and plan.
“There was an hour-long gap between when I last saw her and when Satan appeared, but…” My stomach lurched at what I was about to say. “There was… blood on his mouth. In his teeth. He said it was hers.”
Lucifer swore and Azazel made a sound that was so primitive, so far beyond a simple growl of rage that it made all the little hairs on my body stand up straight.
“We don’t have time to waste,” I added, swallowing the hard lump in my throat. “Everything we’ve planned needs to be executed now.”
It was exactly like the oracle in the cave had told me: I hadn’t kept a close eye on the friends of my heart.
I’d failed her. And I was going to get her back or die trying.
Belial stepped over the dagger he’d been handing to someone else in a different place only moments ago, reaching out to take my hand. “The Seventh Circle is ready. Angel…”
I looked up at him, unable to smile, unable to see anything peaceful or good in my life now. If Vyra died, I would always have that weight on my soul. “I’ll retrieve the Sword of Light. We need it. Without it, all of this falls apart.”
“We have no idea if you can even touch it,” Tascius said. He’d picked himself up off the floor, and in the pearly light of Blackchapel, he seemed more… luminous. It was like nonexistent light was playing off his hair and the planes of his face.
My sense of foreboding only increased. Whatever was happening, it was out of our hands now. All we could do was swim with the current, put every shred of effort into it, and pray for the best.
“I know I can take it, and I have to risk it anyways. The longer she’s with him, the more likely she is to die. We can’t accept that.” I gripped Belial’s fingers hard enough to feel his bones creak.
Lucifer paced the cathedral, scowling furiously. “Don’t go yet. Everyone is in place. Once we begin the siege on the Ninth Circle, a contingency of Watchers will accompany you out into the desert. You can’t go out there unprotected. You’ll only have to handle the Sword for a minimal amount of time before Azazel draws him out of the abyss.”
“I don’t care if it burns or scars me,” I said desperately. “I just want Vyra back.”
Lucifer’s scowl deepened. “You won’t be around to see her again if you burn to death while waiting for the right moment.” He turned away from me, squaring his shoulders. “Call in the Watchers, Azazel. Have them guard her, and send me back. We’re getting word out that it begins now.”
Azazel raised a clawed hand, and I didn’t even have time to speak before the room lurched. Several faint pops echoed through the empty cathedral as Lucifer, Belial, and Azazel vanished, and I found myself gripping empty air.
The light flickered as several shadows flew past the stained glass windows, and the doors flew open.
Two Grigori I’d hoped to never see again entered, their robes swirling and scythes gleaming. Pale blue eyes glared at me from under a hood.
Druzila and Typhon. Of course they’d choose the guards least likely to let me have my way.
“Guard her,” Azazel said, darkness dripping between his fangs. “Until I call.”
He swirled through the doors into the courtyard, and the shadowy vortex began to condense, forming a new shape. I stepped closer, watching as he formed a new shape: an enormous raven with fiery eyes, scales growing between its feathers.
The raven-Azazel spread its wings and took flight. He was so enormous I felt the wind buffet me backwards just from the sheer force of his wingbeats.
When he was gone, swooping out over the city like a feathered dragon, the silence left behind felt like a death knell.
I braced myself against the balustrade, looking over Dis. It was so quiet, so peaceful… and soon it would be on fire. If I squinted, I could just make out the Grigori posted in the city below flying over the Circles, preparing themselves for the siege against the abyss.
No matter what they said, I needed the damn Sword if we were going to win. Vyra needed me.
The image of Satan’s red lips, wet with fresh blood, had seeped into my mind like a stain.
Maybe it wasn’t hers, but if it was… I’d be the first one in line to force-feed him to Azazel’s monstrous appetite.
And just as bad, I hadn’t had time to say goodbye to anyone, or to wish them luck. To tell them I would see them again, no matter what.
I closed my eyes and listened to my marks, feeling for the men tethered to me. Lucifer was furious, Tascius determined, Belial’s bloodthirsty fury rising… but of them all, Azazel was a furious storm of rage and fear for his sister.
Even through the mark, he felt like something else, something almost alien.
I could’ve kicked myself. I’d been willing to blindly trust in the Visionary’s prophecy, but I’d completely neglected to heed anything the oracle had said. She’d once been one of the seers, too; she’d seen that this would happen, and I’d shrugged it off as a worthless threat.
“Look at all of this,” a contemplative feminine voice said. Druzila had silently moved to the balcony alongside me, looking down over the city and the gathering swarms of Watchers. “All this chaos, all the Watchers who will die… for the sake of one succubus.”
My magic prickled inside me, coiling up like an angry snake. “Vyra is his sister. He wasn’t going to sit back and let her be eaten just to keep you happy.”
“There’s thousands more like her.” Druzila leaned on her scythe, her lips set in an ugly frown. “And you’re encouraging this. You alone are the reason we’ve come back to fight an undefeatable force.”
I simply looked at her, the rage becoming a slow venom that ate at m
y heart. “Satan set this uprising in motion long before I ever fell. Azazel has been planning this for centuries. One way or another, you would’ve found yourself here.”
“Neither of you are worth our deaths. I didn’t become a Watcher to die on your behalf.”
I glanced over my shoulder. Typhon was lazily sprawled across a pew that had been pushed against the wall like he didn’t have a care in the world. Then I realized he was asleep.
Asleep, while Vyra suffered and everyone else prepared for a war we might not win.
They were worthless cowards. The hate I felt for both of them in that moment threatened to eclipse all other emotions, burning me from the inside.
“Then why did you become one?” I asked, meeting her gaze levelly. “What was the allure for you? Did you think you’d get to sit on your ass all day and ogle Azazel? He barely seems to know you exist, so I’m not sure what sounds so appealing about that.”
Bright flags of color burned on her cheekbones. “I became a Watcher to reap souls, not rescue useless succubi and serve half-breed fallen angels,” she hissed.
I couldn’t have given less of a damn what she thought about my human provenance or the fact that I was fallen.
But insulting Vyra, who could be undergoing endless tortures at this very moment? Absolutely not.
“Vyra is worth twenty of you. Go reap your souls, if you want. I don’t give a fuck what you do, as long as you stay out of my way.” I climbed up on the edge of the balcony and spread my wings.
Belial had chained Gabriel out where the Starsea’s black sands met the empty wastelands. That’s where I would find the Sword of Light.
A streak of bright pain zipped through my leg.
I looked down to where Druzila had hooked the tip of her scythe around my calf, the razor-like edge just cutting into my skin.
“You have orders to stay here.” She gripped the scythe with white-knuckled hands. “So this is where you stay.”
I smiled humorlessly. I hadn’t fallen just to follow more orders. If I was Lady Wrath, then that’s what Satan would receive for taking what was mine to protect. “You’re not my keeper, and neither is Azazel.”